In today’s day and age, marketing technology is evolving fast and those unable to keep up are left far behind. Marketers can no longer continue to rely on the redundant age-old methods and techniques and hope that they will work out. Especially because there is so much competition out there nowadays, no one can afford to lose out.

As the year draws to a close, it’s important to keep an eye out for some key digital marketing trends that will take the world by storm in 2020.

While some of these trends have to do with increased digitization and automation in the marketing process, others have to do with ‘humanizing’ the whole process of marketing. If you are aspiring to be a successful marketer, you should really consider investing your time and resources in these three digital marketing trends for 2020.

1.     Social Influencer Marketing

Up until just a few months ago, an ‘influencer’ was simply someone who had a massive internet following or someone that could be considered an ‘internet celebrity’ even.

Lately, however, companies have started turning to people who don’t necessarily have a massive internet following to reach their respective target audiences.

Influencer marketing in 2020 is likely to be far more ‘personalized’ than ever before. Customers no longer trust large-scale corporate advertising. Instead, they rely on personal recommendations given by other customers.

An example of this is a gaming company launching their #Superlord campaign on a popular social media app called TikTok.

All trends have indicated that ‘influencer’ social media marketing, particularly of the personalized sort is here to stay.

2.     Increased Personalization

If you really want to stand out in 2020 means, you need to personalize a whole lot more than your ‘influencer’ campaign. Your marketing campaign as a whole also needs to be personalized, ranging from your products, your emails, and your content.

According to statistics, roughly 63% of consumers get annoyed with generic large-scale advertising, 90% say that they love personalization and about 80% say they would much rather work with a business that gives a personalized experience.

According to EmailMonks, the leading customer email design company, “personalized emails are three times better than batch-and-blast emails.”

When talking about personalization, it’s easy to see examples of companies that have resorted to personalized means to attract customers. For example, Amazon, the retail giant, and Netflix offer tailored recommendations to customers on their main web pages. These make the customers feel loved and connected to these brands on a personal level which is what makes them keep coming back.

Other companies have also started increasingly relying on personalization. Cadbury, for example, has launched a personalized video campaign. This campaign relies on information about peoples’ ages, locations, and interests to match a particular dairy milk flavor to them.

Similarly, Starbucks has launched a mobile application that relies on past customer information (such as what a customer usually orders) and uses this to make recommendations. It also allows customers to completely customize their order and even encourages ordering using a reward system.  Starbucks ‘ revenues rose to about $2.56 billion owing to the success of this application.

EasyJet, the flight booking service also launched an email campaign, drawing on past information such as customers’ travel history to give suggestions of where the customer may like to travel next. Roughly 12.5 million personalized emails were also sent to customers and these had a 25% higher ‘click-through’ rate than emails that were not personalized.

The trends are clear – personalization is the way to go in 2020!

3.     Artificial Intelligence

2020 will be the year when people finally start to realize that artificial intelligence will be the heart of all business in the near future. In fact, many businesses have already begun to include artificial intelligence in their marketing campaigns.

Uber and Microsoft are examples of two companies that are using robots to patrol their parking lots and prevent crimes.

In terms of digital marketing, AI can prove useful for many reasons. Using AI, companies can analyze search patterns and customer behavior, in general, to understand which goods and services are most demanded by customers.

One example of this is the use of chatbots. A chatbot is a piece of software meant to replicate how a human would respond in terms of conversation in a particular situation.

MasterCard launched a Facebook messenger bot. This chatbot could understand what the customer wants and respond to these wants just as a human would.

Artificial intelligence will vitally change the entire digital marketing landscape. AI is crucial for revolutionalizing communication between a brand and its customers, content creation, personalization in emails, e-commerce transactions and even product and service recommendations.

These are just a few digital marketing trends of 2020 that will play an instrumental role in changing the social media landscape this coming year.

At Xciting Media, we offer all sorts of digital marketing services including web development, search engine optimization, e-commerce development, social media marketing, branding, and the creation end execution of marketing strategies.