It is no secret that digital tools have rapidly accelerated the evolution of marketing. Digital marketing involves omnichannel maximization and the Internet of Things (IoT). From virtual reality headsets to AI everything, businesses have the opportunity to offer bite-sized, personalized messaging through more channels. As users become more entrenched in ever changing digital worlds, it’s become essential for modern digital marketers to stay ahead of the curve. This blog will explore things that affect the future of digital marketing and how emerging online marketing trends are gaining the most traction.
Trends exist in every facet of the digital marketing world. Digital marketers rely on trends to remain relevant and build credibility with their audience. These trends do not just reflect what types of marketing tactics are most effective at driving revenue; they indicate how people live their lives and what they need as consumers. To identify these trends, businesses would be wise to analyze every facet of how their audiences consume content, use tech tools, and access information.
Collecting information about user behavior is one of the best ways to identify upcoming trends and apply them to specific products and services. But the way businesses gather that data is changing, as questions about privacy and ethics rise to the forefront. Many businesses have dipped themselves into hot water for misusing customer data and violating the privacy of their users. They are transitioning away from using third party cookies and toward collecting first party data from users who opt into sharing their information. They can enjoy a more interactive brand experience as websites highlight different products and information based on user selections. By involving their users in data collection, businesses empower them to assume a fully informed role and build a culture of trust and integrity.
While brands are currently focusing on collecting information from real users, businesses may soon focus on simulated user behavior to inform their interactions with real users. A digital twin of the customer (DTOC) is a super powered customer persona based on aggregated information about user behaviors. DTOCs take on a life of their own, providing dynamic predictions about their real life counterpart’s behavior. Although true digital twins are still in their infancy, advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence or AI technology may soon make the idea of DTOC more achievable than ever. Brands will be able to provide more accurate customizations for real user groups based on the patterns they observe in the digital twins, all while protecting any of the individual’s identifiable information.
When it comes to the impact of voice activated tools on consumer behavior, the numbers speak for themselves. 61% of adults in the United States use some form of voice assistant, with 57% of voice assistant users making voice commands daily. Smart speakers were introduced to the market for the first time in 2014, and now over a third of Americans have one in their home. As more consumers rely on voice search to interact with content online, savvy businesses are racing to optimize their web content for use by smart assistants. Although long form content certainly has its place in the world of Ecommerce SEO or search engine optimization, short form snippets will likely be the key to harnessing voice search as well. By strategically organizing online content into concise excerpts, businesses can make their content more appealing to voice assistant algorithms. This involves producing natural, conversational short form content.
Automated chatbots are nothing new, but the proliferation of advanced AI has firmly built them into the future of digital marketing. Instead of making users rely on search functions or complex FAQ pages, businesses can use advanced chatbots to simulate personalized conversation that engages their users instantaneously. These chatbots are achieving satisfaction rates that exceed those of human representatives. chatbots have to both correctly interpret user questions and respond to them appropriately. Backing up chatbots with a database of digestible information is the key to their utility, especially as they take on more and more advanced user queries.
One of the common challenges all businesses face with digital marketing is making connections between the online representation of their products and their real life implementations. Marketers help users envision what problems their product aims to solve through persuasive copy and campaigns, but these digital methods often lack tangibility. Augmented reality (AR) tools combine real and virtual worlds by projecting digital content into physical environments, typically through the lens of a phone camera. Although AR first shot to popularity in the context of interactive gaming. However, there is an emerging application for AR in the marketing sector. Businesses can create immersive. AR encourages users to see, hear, touch, and feel how products align with their unique needs. It helps them feel more confident in their purchases. AR provides users with an engaging, gamified way to shop with advanced motion capture, shadows, textures, and sounds.
