As we enter the last few months of the year, we start to look at 2020 and what is going to happen. There will always be new trends and as technology has changed the world so much in recent years, connecting people from all different countries and cultures, marketing and how you go about promoting your business has also changed.
So, as we look ahead to next year, what do we expect to see more of and how can we make the most of these trends?
More Chatbots
Chatbots have become increasingly popular lately, and this is a trend that isn’t going anywhere soon. Chatbots are getting better and better all the time and are now able to communicate naturally with people viewing a website and can answer questions in real-time. Chatbots save costs by answering questions on your behalf, and customers appreciate the personalized service and getting their questions answered. A chatbot is also never rude or moody; you won’t hear customers complain about being turned away. Chatbots are unbiased, clear, and informative, which are all qualities that make your customers feel at ease.
Use of Private Messaging Apps
Smartphone apps such as WhatsApp, Viber and WeChat are already gaining popularity with companies, and many are using them instead of using emails. It’s looking likely that soon customers will be able to pay for products directly through messaging apps and if you look at applications like the WeChat Pay they have already made significant progress in making it easier to pay online; WeChat, Venmo, and PayPal users are already getting into the habit of using these types of apps to transfer money to people.
Increased Use of Artificial Intelligence
Robots or machines working like humans will continue to increase, with chatbots and voice assistance to quickly find answers, Alexa and Siri provide excellent customer care, and these technologies can take orders from the users and work behind the scenes on their behalf.
Hyper-Targeted Advertising
People hate adverts, but they love great content, so if your company keeps consistently sending tailored messages, then many will respond by buying the product.
Shoppable Posts
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.
Social media platforms have taken note of the fact that people are using them to shop and have made it easier for merchants to sell via social media. Over the past few years, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook all have ways for ecommerce stores to create shoppable posts using a native integration that makes it easy to tag and shop products directly in your posts. For online retailers, this is a great way to drive traffic to product pages. This is a trend that is set to continue as it’s popular for consumers and businesses alike. If you can demonstrate a product in a video on social media, then chances are people will click on that video and buy it.
Online Maps
Today, GPS is almost always active on phones, but in the future, all companies (including online stores) will be added to the map.
Continued Focus On Video
Video is not going anywhere anytime soon and with stats like this, why would it? About 70% of users share their favorite brand’s new video; 83% of corporations claim that video content has increased their conversion; 96% of buyers are sure that the video helps them to understand the product in more detail; 65% of users visit the site, and 39% call the seller after viewing;87% of companies use video as a marketing tool. Video is the brightest and most effective tool to convey information to your audience. Among the younger generation, online video has completely displaced watching TV.
Personalization
Personalizing the customer experience has been on the rise, but only a few companies are really doing it. However, big companies like Amazon are already doing it really well, so others will soon be following suit. Analyzing the behavior customers and promoting products based on assumptions and the customer’s past purchase history has worked really well for Amazon and the upselling tactic of the recommendations tab has meant that Amazon gets more and more business. Consumers now expect personalization and one study has even shown that that 79% of consumers feel frustrated if the content they’re viewing isn’t tailored to them. According to Gartner, by 2020, at least 90% of online advertisers will start using marketing personalization in some shape or form. And by 2021, there will be a significant increase in fully personalized websites.
Transparency
Research shows that companies producing transparent and easy-to-digest information are likely to retain 94% of their customers the GDPR policy was more actively enforced last year, there will continue to be more of an emphasis on how companies handle their customers’ data in the future. To improve your company’s transparency, make sure you have established your company’s core value, that selling is not your only goal, be an open book to your customers and tell them as much as you can about who they are doing business with. It’s important that if customers raise some concerns or questions, you respond immediately and are able to take constructive criticism from your customers and respond in a friendly, non-judgmental tone. Create space and encourage people to give different suggestions to help improve your products- facilitate a community around your brand.
Voice-Powered Search
As the growth in technology continues to increase rapidly, we will start to see more people using smartphones with voice assistants. Features like Google, Alexa, and Siri are useful in digital marketing. Voice assistants can search for things, read text loudly, and even voice dictate text messages for you so that you can be hands-free. We will soon see more of people speaking to find out information from their phones and devices, and as this continues, we will see people being able to buy products by voice recognition technology.