Three Digital Marketing Trends To Focus On In 2020

Three Digital Marketing Trends To Focus On In 2020 - Forbes Article 

As we enter 2020, marketers and business owners must prepare for upcoming digital marketing trends. The landscape of marketing is constantly changing, and if you don’t keep up, you’ll miss out on ways to bring your business to new heights.

Forward-thinking strategies will drive traffic to your website, grow your email list, generate sales and bring customers back again and again. Imagine if marketers used the same approaches they used decades ago. They wouldn’t be able to appeal to their target audiences, and their businesses surely wouldn’t thrive off of old procedures.

Keeping up with the trends is important if you’re going to advance your business and market to consumers the way they want. Here are three digital marketing trends businesses need to pay attention to in 2020.

Improved Customer Security

Customer security has always been important, but as technology advances, it’s becoming more of a determining factor for customer purchases. If consumers feel that their information isn’t safe passing through your website, they won’t bother to buy and are unlikely to revisit. It’s crucial that your website and your brand overall takes cybersecurity seriously and keeps customer information safe.

In 2020, the need for security is only going to heighten as concerns move into the spotlight and more data breaches occur. Both the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) emphasize keeping customer data secure. Marketers must put extra focus on how they use cookies when marketing their products and services.

Even some of the biggest brands experience security breaches that affect company performance and conversions. In 2019, T-Mobile experienced a breach that compromised more than 1 million accounts, including information about customers’ billing addresses, phone numbers, names, account numbers and more.

Conversational Marketing

Nowadays, consumers are busy and don’t stop. Advanced technology created an environment where people expect speedy solutions and quick turnaround. The need for speed only becomes more crucial as time goes on, which is why conversational marketing will be an effective strategy for the upcoming year.

Conversational marketing uses feedback and customer data to drive conversions, improve engagement, build customer loyalty and more. It’s easier to improve your business operations when you have information straight from the source. This method starts a conversation with your audience so you can revamp areas of your brand that need improvement.

Live support, chatbots, customer loyalty programs and email marketing all use conversational marketing. It works exceptionally well for customer support since it uses casual language and AI-powered technology to help consumers solve their problems.

Conversational marketing lets businesses personalize their approach and connect with consumers in ways they previously couldn’t. It provides a friendly touch to brands that might seem too technical so they can build better relationships with their customers.

Interactive Content Marketing

Marketers are always looking at ways to spice up their content and appeal to their target audiences. As time goes on, consumers respond more to inbound marketing practices than outbound, which explains why using content to generate sales makes sense in 2020. Unlike static content, interactive content requires visitors’ active participation to get results.

Some examples include:

• Quizzes

• Polls and surveys

• Calculators

• Maps

• 360-degree videos

• Infographics

Interactive content works because it grabs the reader’s attention and provides them with value. Boosting conversions requires persuasion on your part, but since it’s so good at keeping visitors entertained and engaged, it does the work for you.

As I am working on developing my e-commerce website for my brand, these trends have been the focus of the conversations that I’ve had with the agency that I am working with. As a small company, these trends are important because we are in the process of developing a brand (image and reputation). We need to be kept abreast of key trends in digital marketing so that we can remain relevant, grow and continue to effectively spread awareness.