Marketing trends come and go, but there are some consistent and useful options to choose from in 2019. A robust marketing strategy is more critical than ever before, and with the vast potential for generating online sales, getting your marketing right is vital. 2019 has seen some standard marketing practices drop by the wayside in terms of effectiveness, but that means that there are several options that could make all of the difference when it comes to developing a more potent marketing strategy this year.
If your marketing is feeling a little stale, then these trends could be the key to a better end of year result.
Get Chatty with Bots
Live chat isn’t new, and chatbots have been around for a few years. However, they are becoming one of the most important new elements to include in your website setup. As a marketing tool, chatbots are essential, and when up to 1.4 billion people interact with chatbots every year, you could be missing out by not using them. Chatbots are useful because they:
- Allow for 24/7 service.
- Provide customers with immediate answers.
- Are helpful for giving simple answers.
- Faster complaint resolution.
- Make your company feel more approachable.
If you haven’t yet incorporated chatbots into your marketing improvements, now is the time to start looking a little closer.
Video Marketing
Facebook changed the game when it came to video. Now, video is the type of content that should absolutely be prioritized, and it can be used in a wide variety of ways. Don’t merely dream of going viral. Instead, design your videos for marketing so that they provide value to your site visitors. One of the most useful things about using video as your marketing foundation is that they can be used in a variety of ways. Embedding video links into your email newsletters can be a great way to encourage site visits, and of course, social media absolutely loves video content. If you want Facebook algorithms to work for you, then video posts should always take priority over text posts.
Perfect Personalization
This is more than sending out your email marketing with the right name at the top. Personalization is all about dividing your audience into segmented demographics. The more that you can break down your audience into segments, the easier it will be to tailor your marketing campaigns to suit. There’s little worth for a restaurant to send out details of a special offer on meat dishes to a vegetarian audience member. Many business owners see the word personalization and focus on sending out birthday wishes, but it’s more useful than that. Target your marketing, and you will have a much stronger impact.
Create a Beacon
This is a relatively underused marketing tactic, but it is becoming more common in 2019. It works in a similar way to GPS but isn’t quite as complex. If you have a physical store, then you can use beacon technology to prompt nearby people to visit. Not only can that get customers into your shop, but you can also take it even further by alerting them when they are near a special offer product. It can take time to develop the required app, and you’ll need to have a large enough audience so that downloading your app doesn’t feel like overstretching. However, beacon tech looks set to be the next big marketing tactic for those businesses that have a mix of online and real-world stores.
Going Vocal
AI assistants either in the home or on the phone are changing the way that people search for information and products online. If your SEO strategy seems to be slowing down, then it could be down to the fact that your marketing content hasn’t been optimized for voice searching. Consider how differently you type a query into Google, as opposed to how you ask a question. Tailoring your content so that it matches the evolving ways that consumers search online could be the key to improving your digital impact not just in 2019, but for the foreseeable future.
Your marketing effectiveness is going to rely on your ability to keep up with new trends. While not every new marketing option will suit every business, knowing what consumers expect from you is essential if you want to keep your sales growing. Keep up to date with the emerging marketing trends and incorporate those that fit your brand. Improving your marketing should be an ongoing process, and your bottom line will always be a reflection of your effectiveness.
