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JAM’s Digital Marketing Predictions for 2020

Digital marketing is made up of a lot of moving parts such as social media, SEO, marketing automation, paid advertising (PPC)…and more. New technologies and ever-changing Google and Facebook algorithms keep many marketing teams on their toes (including us). Part of our job is to stay up-to-date on the upcoming trends so we can ensure our clients’ digital marketing campaigns remain effective.

As we enter a new decade and as technology continues to change rapidly, here are the top digital marketing trends we’re excited to see in 2020.

1. Voice Search
“Siri, how many people in Australia have a smart speaker?”

“Here’s what I found, Australia has leapt past the U.S. in smart speaker adoption. Smart Speaker reaach as of January 2019 is 5.7million in Australia.”

Yep! You read it correctly, over 25% of adults in the Australia own a smart speaker like Google Home and Amazon Echo. In addition, 31% of smartphone users worldwide use voice-activated search, like Siri, at least once a week. It is estimated that in 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches – which makes voice search one of the biggest marketing trends of 2020.

This is the year that digital marketers can no longer ignore voice search. There are a lot of things you can do to optimise your site for voice search – but the most important change involves using long tail keywords like “how to make a choc pavlova” instead of a shorter keyword like “choc pavlova.”

2. Social Commerce
Social media in now pretty well know that it’s a huge part of online marketing. What you might not have realised is just how many people shop on social. 60% of Instagram users say they discover new products on Instagram and in a survey of over 4,000 Pinterest users, a whopping 70% said Pinterest helps them find new products. Take note retailers!

These platforms undertstand that people are using them to shop and have made it easier for merchants to sell on them.  Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook all have ways for ecommerce stores to create shoppable posts that makes it easy to tag (price and product link) and shop products directly in posts. This is a great way to drive traffic to product pages.

The name for it is – social commerce. You can reach new customers, reduce the barriers to purchasing, and dramatically shorten the purchase/sales funnel. While shoppable posts have been on the rise for a few years, we expect them to become the norm in 2020.

3. Immersive Technology like Augmented and Virtual Reality
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have exploded in popularity over the past few years and are quickly becoming one of the top marketing trends. This year, it’s estimated people will use AR to shop online and in-store. AR is already being used by major companies like IKEA. Using their app and AR, customers can see what a piece of furniture would look like in their space before purchasing (or even setting foot in a store)! People love to interact and kind of content give people a reason to hang around on your page so is predicted to be one of the top 2020 marketing trends.

5. Smart Bidding in Google Ads
Automation is nothing new in the digital marketing world, but thanks to recent Google Ads updates announced at Google Marketing Live, we expect automation and smart bidding to become the norm.

Google Ads relies on machine learning to optimise your bids so you get the most value out of every paid search or display conversion. The improvements announced at Google Marketing Live make optimising your bids better than ever with the ability to choose conversion actions at the campaign level, the ability to optimise your bids across several campaigns with a set of desired conversion actions, and the ability to set bids to automatically change when a sale starts or stops. These improvements will help you maximise your conversions.

6. Personalisation
Consumers are tired of seeing generic ads that may not have anything to do with them. Personalised marketing is where it’s at in 2020. We all know we change the channel when commercials are on… and pay extra to video and music streaming services to avoid ads. Traditional advertising and generic commercials are increasingly ineffective.  And that’s where personalised advertising comes in. 

90% of 1,000 people surveyed said they find personalisation appealing and 80% said they’re more likely to do business with a company that offers personalised experiences. Customers are beginning to expect personalisation and there are a lot of ways for you to deliver.

Segmented email lists are one of the most popular ways to personalise  online marketing efforts. In fact, personalised email blasts perform three times better than generic emails sent to your entire database list. Most email marketing tools, like MailChimp, and marketing automation tools, like HubSpot, make list segmentation simple and easy. 

7. Social Messaging
Social media apps like Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WeChat, and WhatsApp aren’t just for messaging friends anymore. These apps are becoming popular ways for businesses to communicate with their customers. In fact, Facebook Messenger sees over 10 billion messages exchanged between individuals and businesses each month.

Messaging apps are popular for businesses because customers find it convenient to have direct contact with companies. It also allows for extremely personalised marketing, which we already know people love!

8. Visual Search
Visual Search is just what it sounds like – using images instead of keywords in search engines. Already used in beta by Pinterest and Google, a visual search will allow users to take a picture of something they would like to search for (to buy or find similar items) and the uploaded picture will be used to find results. This technology is predicted to only grows and improve in 2020. Pinterest’s CEO, Ben Silbermann has predicted that “the future of search will be about pictures rather than keywords.”

9. Social Media Stories
When Snapchat was released in 2017, it was the first social media platform to conceive the ‘story’ – short and sweet picture or video messages that disappear after 24 hours. As the concept of the story has spread across other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, the story is no longer just a phenomenon for millennials and gen z. Now companies of all sizes are using them to increase brand awareness and take the opportunity to interact with a younger audience. If you haven’t already, use stories on Snapchat, Instagram, and even Facebook.

10. Employee Engagement
Giving your audience an efficient and courteous customer experience has to start from the ground up – with your employees. As the face of your company, your employees need to be not only knowledgeable of your brand but engaged and happy to be part of it. By engaging them in your brand, you ensure that they want your business to succeed just as much as you do.

Recapping the Digital Marketing Trends for 2020
Digital marketing is constantly changing! We think the above digital marketing trends will be BIG this year. If you need hand with your digital marketing, drop us a line for a chat to see how we can help your business.

 

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