It’s no secret that marketing trends emerge with technological changes and innovations. If you want your business to stand out, attract new customers, and increase its visibility online, you’ll need to be proactive about tech changes.
Think of tech trends in two ways (and your mindset will make the difference between successful campaigns and crickets in your analytics):
Either take steps to learn and apply the trends, or get left behind.
In this article, you’ll learn about six innovative tech trends on the horizon dramatically changing the marketing landscape. Ready to launch? Here are the strategies and tools you’ll need to hit the ground running this year.
Trend 1: Omnichannel Marketing is No Longer Optional, It’s Necessary
Up until now, marketers have had success focusing on a few social channels to post and engage on. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. As a business marketer, you don’t have time to post content to every platform. Rather than creating custom content for each channel, you can repurpose content and post it on every channel. This will not only reinforce your brand messaging, but it will keep your business relevant and engaged with your online community.
Omnichannel marketing enables your collective audience to visit your channels seamlessly. The result?
Cross-channel sales are worth roughly $2 trillion.
Ready to see omnichannel marketing in action? Take a look at how major U.S. retailer, Nordstrom implements cross-channel marketing:
- The Nordstrom Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook accounts contain clickable product posts and style inspiration.
- When people browse Nordstrom’s social media accounts, they can shop posts that lead them to the Nordstrom website.
- Once they arrive at the site, they can schedule a styling appointment, download the Nordstrom app, and gain access to a loyalty rewards program.
Omnichannel marketing places the customer in a fluid cycle of content, customer service, sales, and rewards.
The message is loud and clear:
You need to focus on omnichannel marketing. The rise of digital marketing and social media has created the need for automated publishing tools. Frankly, business owners and marketers simply don’t have time to post every day to multiple platforms.
Enter: Content creation, resizing, and publishing tools from PosterMyWall. Not only can you create content, but you can also resize it to various dimensions like Instagram posts or Facebook shared images in a go. Bonus? It’s free. But it’s not enough to just create content; you also want to publish it.
To save time, batch your content creation and publishing tasks together. You can create engaging visual content in one sitting and schedule it to auto-publish to each channel. By resizing designs on the go and auto-publishing content with a simple mouse click, you save time and money and keep your brand relevant.
Omnichannel marketing equates to omnipresence online, and that’s a 2020 tech change you can’t ignore.
Create a Design on PosterMyWall
Trend 2: The Future of Video Marketing
Video marketing has become a buzzword lately, but is it worth all the hype? According to video marketing statistics from HubSpot, over half of people online watch videos every day, so I’d say the answer is a resounding yes. What type of content are people watching? YouTube no longer dominates, as Facebook video ads, Instagram Stories, and Live grow in popularity.
The key to effective video marketing is personalization. People aren’t interested in watching highly polished, curated videos anymore. Instead, they crave video content that resonates with their personal interests. Bite-sized videos are a great way to connect with your audience and share a more intimate side of your brand.
And don’t worry; you don’t need a professional videographer to create engaging video content. You can easily craft relevant and engaging videos from scratch or video templates in PosterMyWall. Create videos to tailor your brand message, promote a product launch, or inform your audience about company news.
Here’s How Easy PosterMyWall Is:
- Browse video templates to find one that fits the tone and message of your brand
- Click on the design to customize the template
- Use the editor to easily customize the copy, colors, fonts and design
- Share the video directly to your social channels from PosterMyWall
You’ve got a branded video to share in just four easy steps! With short, engaging video content, you keep yourself at the forefront of your audience’s attention, and that’s a great place to be.
Trend 3: Make Products Available In The Google Marketplace
A new tech change has been the topic of much debate for marketers: pushing products to the Google Marketplace. Opponents argue that they’ve invested a sizable sum into building a captivating website that reflects their business’ branding and identity. Pushing products to Google removes the opportunity for visitors to marvel at their perfectly packaged site. The result? a significant drop in web traffic.
You’ll have to look beyond this metric to see the bigger picture. Do you want to make sales? Or do you want to have a highly-visited website? Of course, you want sales, but you don’t one one-off sales, you want repeat, loyal customers, which is why you created the gorgeous website, right? Right.
Instead of referring to Google Marketplace as the death of your website, think of it as another channel to bring awareness to your brand. While other brands vacillate on the prospect of pushing products to Google and losing traffic, you can jump in and list your products, get sales, and grow your brand.
The fact that you can list your products to sell through Google in just minutes makes it an easy (and free!) marketing tool you can’t ignore.
Here’s how you can do it:
First, head to your Google Business Profile Account, where you can list your products and product details, add images, and start selling within minutes. Of course, you’ll want to reinforce your brand voice, messaging and branding from your website and social media channels. This means you don’t want to throw up a hodgepodge of messy product listings. Treat Google Marketplace the same way you would your online store and put thought into the images, copy and product descriptions.
Trend 4: SERPS Favor Schema Markups and Rich Snippets
Digital marketing is undeniably reliant on SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Nowadays, you’ll need to do more than choose target keywords and use image alt text to increase web traffic. You still need to use SEO best practices, but you’ll now have to take it a step further and create rich snippets with Schema Markups.
A rich snippet contains microdata, called Schema markup, that tells search engines what each web page is about. For example, when you enter “coffee maker” into Google’s search bar, which of these results do you think people are more likely to click on:
- A clear product description, price, customer rating, and reviews
- An unclear meta description pulled randomly from the page, no rating, no price, no information
If you guessed the first option, you are correct. All major search engines, including Google and Yahoo!, recognize schema markups and rich snippets when pulling up SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
What can you do? You have two options: use Schema.org to create rich snippets, or take advantage of this free tool from Google. Now, each of your product pages is full of pertinent information, increasing your business’s visibility.
Trend 5: AI will Facilitate Hyper-Personalization
Does hyper-personalization sound like an oxymoron? In a way, it does, but that doesn’t diminish its relevance. When we discuss personalization in the marketing space, we’re examining ways to provide a more personalized experience to customers.
Let me be clear: AI will not dehumanize a brand when used correctly. Instead, it will assist with creating a more personalized and positive customer service experience. After all, consumers are tired of impersonal media. When you consider ubiquitous media inundates them with 5,000 ads a day, it’s easy to see why they are fatigued. Instead of adding to the noise, you can artfully employ AI to curate a more personalized experience.
With technological changes and the influx of AI software, marketers can access their customers on a more intimate level. One of the best ways to use AI to get personal is to collect data about what content they enjoy.
Carefully examine your website analytics and social media insights. What patterns emerge? You’ve established customer personas to create branding and imagery that speaks to them. Still, that’s simply not enough if you want a real brand-to-customer connection.
That’s why major brands are using AI because with it…
- Netflix can predict what each user wants to watch based on their history.
- Under Armour tailors a health regimen based on users’ eating, sleeping, and health habits.
- Chatbots can ask visitors on your brand’s Facebook Page if they need help finding a specific product or service.
The bottom line is to get hyper-personal with your customers, you’ll need AI’s help.
Trend 6: Voice Search Will Not Replace Visual Content
The rise in voice search has marketers mass-converting readable content into voice format for search engines. Voice search is a trend on everyone’s radar, and rightfully so:
Half of searches will be conducted via voice search.
It’s probably a good idea to focus your attention on voice search, but in doing so, don’t make the mistake of thinking that visual content is day-old bread. It’s quite the opposite. Need proof? It’s called Instagram, and it has over 1 billion monthly active users.
People irrefutably love visual content. Why wouldn’t they? With visuals, they can:
- Learn skills or information relevant to their interests
- Try out new recipes or create arts and crafts
- Watch entertaining and informative videos
- Find new brands and products
While the importance of visual marketing hasn’t necessarily changed in 2020, the arrival of innovative concepts might tempt marketers away from creating visual content. This inevitably will be a detriment. That’s why it’s vital to include exceptional visual content in all of your outreach strategies.
To help you, PosterMyWall is fully stocked with image libraries, video templates, and thousands of professionally designed templates. This free design software allows you to customize templates by changing text, color, and imagery to match your branding. With easy-to-use editing software, you can also craft social media posts, blog imagery, customized product images, and promotional assets from scratch.
Remember to repurpose these visuals to nail your omnichannel marketing. For example, you can create a blog post header and resize it into a Pinterest pin or Instagram post, and voila, you’ve got stunning visual content for multiple channels!
Make Tech Changes Work For You
You’ll need to cast a wide net to bring in customers, build brand awareness, and grow your business. To do that, staying flexible and ahead of the trends is essential. The key to content marketing is adaptability, as marketers resist change risk, and the market evolves without them. The more open and actionable you are to tech changes, the better you can use them to your advantage. And when you do? Well, there’s no stopping you!
