Trends evolve year in, year out. Here are 6 digital marketing trends that have exploded in 2019.
Digital Marketing Trends that Blew Up in 2019
1. Voice Search
Last week we wrote about how voice search is slowly becoming a part of like. By 2020, Google suggests more than 50% of traffic on their search engine will be with voice. Crazy right. You can read that here.
2. Facebook Chat Bots
If you’re not yet on this train, jump on as it’s moving quickly. We highly suggest the chatbot software Manny Chat. This tool allows you to set up sequences and CTA’s that’ll help drive more leads to your sales team for free. Comparing open and click rates from Email to Chat is astonishing.
I’ll preface this by explaining email has an average click rate of only 4%. We’ve run some very successful email campaigns and a 10-20% click rate is something to be proud of. In comparison, chatbots are reported to generate a mind-boggling click rate of 15-60%. You read that correctly, 15-60%. So? Is Email Dead? Nothing is for sure, but with 1.3 billion monthly users active on Facebook Messenger, it’s going to be a tough game for email.
3. Social Mayhem
I consistently witness my girlfriend targeted and targeted again by social media ads selling everything from clothes to jewellery and even… cars? Guess what? They work. Shopping from Instagram is becoming massive! Combining genius crazy social proofing with retail products is like smooth butter melting from a stack of pancakes! CREAM BABY! Instagram shopping Everybody loves to shop and when you make it this easy, combined with email, chatbots, retargeting, follow-ups, your conversions should fly through the roof.
4. Is SEO Dead?
“SEO has been dead for years”. Listen: there’s always a right and a wrong way to do things. Just because you cannot buy bulk and spammy backlinks from India and see good results in 2 weeks, it doesn’t mean it has died. Just as everything in this world, evolves. And if digital marketers don’t evolve with the times, they’ll be left behind. We need to take a step back and look at what Google wants.
The best search engine right? So if you’re trying to trick it, or manipulate their algorithms, guess what? You will be penalised. Search Engine Optimisation is still very alive to this day. We just reached our goal of growing e-commerce clients traffic by over 100% in 12 months. Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is about authority.
Google will never favour a website that they don’t see as an authority because then they’re not doing their best by the end-user. What we have been focusing on recently is heavy content development providing value to our clients, and building up authority in the digital marketing space. We replicate this with our clients. Short answer: no. SEO is not dead. Where I see most businesses go wrong is going cheap on their “investment”, only to be left with no results. SEO takes time and money. If we don’t dedicate enough time to the account, you won’t see results and it’s as simple as that.
5. Programmatic Advertising
What is it? You may have heard of programmatic advertising but what does it all mean? Put simply, it’s utilising data and machine learning to buy and sell ad space across many networks. This is no longer about the scattergun approach. Think of programmatic Advertising as Google’s Display Network on steroids. programmatic advertising Seen above, programmatic advertising isn’t slowing down anytime soon. To give you a real-world example of how this may work, let’s use Samantha as an example. Samantha wants to sell more Nike Running Shoes. Samantha approaches a digital marketing agency to put together a custom audience focused on her key product.
demographics (male / female / 18 – 45),
geography (3 min from a field track),
interests (running, health),
behaviours (consume running content on their lunch break),
time of day (7-10 PM)
weather (sunny)
device (smartphones)
At this stage, the company can utilise continuous information to recognize the best online audience(s) for the campaign and purchase advanced ad space on everything accessible over various gadgets, in places the target audience thinks about.
6. Push Notifications
Last, but not least, Push Notifications. If you own a smartphone, you know what a notification is. Some annoying, pestering and almost seems impossible to get rid of. Push Notifications can also be utilised through OneSignal seem to be leading the pack here. Push notifications simply ask your website visitors if they’d like to be a part of your community and receive offers and promotions (similar to an exit pop-up lead capture). It’s also another way to stay in contact with your prospects and get them at the right time. Tread lightly here as this can be where you become the annoyer instead of the expert. This being said, there are some cool ways you can utilise this software without becoming an annoyance.
Conclusion:
It can be difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with all the new marketing hype. One day it’s Facebook Chat Bots, the next it’s optimising your SEO for voice, it’s hard to see through the mist. The truth is, it’s not a one size fits all approach, and if you claim a strategy session with one of our gurus, we can point you in the right direction.