It’s that time again—the end of the year is near, and marketers are thinking about what they can do in the months ahead to avoid falling behind the competition. Last year, we shared Digital Marketing Trends for 2019—strategies and tactics to keep your digital campaigns competitive and ahead of the curve. This year, we’re doing it again!
With a new decade just around the corner, one thing is crystal clear: digital marketing isn’t going anywhere. In fact, digital ad spend is expected to account for 50 percent of all advertising budgets worldwide by 2020. How are smart businesses planning? With 2019 in the rearview, here are 5 new digital marketing trends to help you show up and be fierce in 2020.
1. Invite data to the party.
Since the dawn of time, science and art have been at odds in business, with analytics and creative often existing as separate, but equally important functions. Today, as more companies start to prioritize the customer, bringing together analytics with creative teams makes sense.
Here’s why. Gathering important insight about who your customers are and how they engage with you is key. But, wrangling numbers is only part of it—you still need to be able to use those insights to tell a story. Building a creative narrative around data helps you advance smart campaigns with content that does its job.
When Red Bull, global sports drink company, wanted to help retail partners better align creative campaigns, they turned to data to deliver actionable and quick insight on evolving consumer preferences. Red Bull explored shopping behavior and was able to build the story from data—that customer buying patterns were changing. Armed with new insight, the company optimized their retail strategy, including ad placement. Deeper insight into customer preferences enabled Red Bull to create marketing campaigns with a higher degree of accuracy and effect.
2020 is all about the customer, and bringing together the best of science and art. This year, expect to see brands spend a lot of time and money trying to get this synergy right. While you may not be Red Bull, fostering collaboration between analytics and creative teams will help you create the experience your customers crave with digital advertising that’s not only amazing, but delivers results.
2. Rock micro moments on mobile.
It’s safe to say that nearly everyone today owns, or at least has access to, a mobile phone. Our mobile devices are extensions of who we are, what we know and how we function in the modern world. They’re particularly useful for “micro moments” in life—a term coined by Google to describe those moments when people act impulsively on the need to know where to “see and do” just about anything—right now.
Mobile devices support these quick moments in time, like looking for a parking garage in an unfamiliar city or trying to find fresh flowers on the way to a friend’s house. Intent-driven interactions on mobile devices are expected to increase dramatically in the coming year.
Why is this important? With the rise of AI-powered chatbots and shoppable social media, consumers are becoming more comfortable without any direct human-to-human interaction with businesses. This presents unique opportunities for brands to shape consumers’ decisions by showing the right digital ad in the right place at the right time. At this very moment, customers are walking through stores looking for coupons on their phones. They’re searching for information on a product they see on a shelf, quickly comparing prices and evaluating how and where to spend their money.
In the coming year, savvy digital advertisers will begin looking at ways to better understand these ‘have to buy’ moments and how to be ready with advertising that persuades, even compels a purchase. Bottom line? Mobile devices host millions of micro moments every day, delivering information buyers need on the fly—win the moment by being there and being useful.
3.Get up close and personal, without being creepy.
Personalized advertising has evolved over the past few years into a “must-do” tactic leading to better connections with customers. Besides, generic ads are easy to avoid, and are increasingly ineffective.
Statistically, people are 80 percent more likely to buy when a brand makes the experience personal. But, adding a name to an email simply won’t cut it anymore, but if you get too initiate—well, that’s no good either.
Personalized advertising—done well— targets customers with unique messaging that’s meaningful and relevant. Anything less is simply not a great, personalized experience. How will businesses master the art of great personalization in 2020?
Armed with sophisticated data, competitive businesses will focus more on building deep, authentic connections with their customers to deliver individualized experiences. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will help, making it easy to quickly and accurately sift through data to uncover patterns, predict outcomes and make suggestions based on individualized buying habits, interests and specific behaviors of unique customers.
Personalization matters, and 2020 will be the year businesses finally start to get serious about understanding their audience, using AI and advanced technologies to derive insight that can help activate more relevant and more effective digital campaigns.
4. Serve up knockout videos.
As more people continue to leave pay TV for digital alternatives, smart marketers are taking notice, and ramping up digital video campaigns. Consumer viewing habits are changing too, as people of every age prefer to browse content across multiple devices, on the go. Businesses who capitalize on this new trend will do it with video ads that are knockouts—compelling, targeted and brief.
Streaming video ads on social media platforms like You Tube and Facebook are highly effective because people watch them to completion (you can’t skip a streaming ad on Facebook) extending your brand message quickly and effectively. And, with the number of Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms like Netflix and Hulu growing each day, there’s no shortage of viewers.
Consider this: Forester predicts by 2023, ad spend for video alone will top $100 billion. As video consumption grows, savvy brands will make video advertising a critical part of a successful online marketing plan. Creating ads that tell a story and elicit an emotional response in under 15 seconds is tough, but a big win in 2020.
5. Be more interesting with interactive ads.
Consumers today are bombarded with online advertising, but most are still open to viewing—and engaging—with content they think is interesting. Digital ads with interactive elements, like quizzes, shoppable posts, polls and 360-degree video allow consumers to engage actively, rather than passively, keeping them interested.
During last year’s Super Bowl, the famous potato chip brand, Pringles, ran an interactive ad on connected TV. The ad featured a QR code for viewers to use their phones to connect to Pringle’s online store on Amazon. Super Bowl fans felt compelled to check it out, and Pringles was able to boost loyalty, and encourage purchases.
Interactive ads typically outperform static ads, generating higher click-through-rates (CTR) and more completions. There’s also the benefit of being instantly shareable too, delivering twice the value as they pass between users. In 2020, expect to see more brands turn up the heat on creative with interactive advertising that delivers impressive results.
The Last Word
If you’re on the fence about ramping up your digital strategy in 2020, remember this: the digital landscape is only getting more competitive with global ad spend predicted to reach $605 billion next year.
To cut through the noise, digital marketers will optimize great strategies, fine tune best practices and make it all about the customer. From winning micro moments on mobile to building deeper connections through interactive ads and video, 2020 is the year for smart businesses to create digital advertising that drives results.
Are you wondering how to jumpstart your digital plan for 2020? It’s easy with an expert team by your side. Visit Dash Two today!