1. Smart Speakers: A New Channel for Digital Marketing
The proliferation of smart speakers is one of the significant developments in recent years. According to the Social Report, around 56 million smart speakers were sold to consumers in 2018, and smart speaker makers will sell about 94 million devices in 2019—increasing the installed base to 207.9 million by year-end.
The growth of smart speakers is a glowing opportunity and is soon becoming a prime channel for marketers to place advertisements and market their products and services. These are the two ways your business can embrace smart speaker marketing and advertising in 2024:
- ‘Branded Skill’ or ‘App’
You can create a branded Alexa Skill or Google Home app that is relevant to your brand, and provide a useful service to your audience. Marketers are using Alexa Skills to connect with their audience by offering them industry news, relevant products, and more.
- Flash-briefing
Flash Briefing on Alexa is becoming a popular way to get the morning news, weather, and other day-to-day information. The users are allowed to pick and choose the news sources, podcasts, and other ‘Skills’ that they want their smart speaker to play.
2. The Rise of Voice Search
Another prominent development impacting the digital marketing world today is the extensive adoption of voice search technology. Voice search is changing the way search marketing professionals optimize websites to rank for targeted keywords and queries.
It is estimated that in 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches, opening up new marketing avenues for digital marketers. There’s an extensive list of things you can do to optimize your site for voice search, and the most significant of them is to use long-tail keywords like “most expensive women’s clothing brand” instead of a shorter keyword like “clothing brand.”
clothing brand | Undefined primary keyword and doesn’t focus on a specific audience |
most expensive women’s clothing brand | Defined keyword and caters to a particular audience |
3. Chatbots in Marketing
The next digital marketing trend is using chatbots to market and advertise. Businesses have been using chatbots for quite some time now, and marketing is capitalizing on the trend in a significant way.
Chatbots on Social Media
Chatbots are finding multiple applications in digital marketing—helping brands interact with customers better and offer them a superior experience. For instance, Uber now allows users to request an Uber ride through their Facebook Messenger app. By integrating marketing channels with the point of purchase, chatbots are not only making the customer experience more seamless but shortening the purchase cycle too.AI-driven Chatbots
An AI-powered chatbot is capable of delivering a personalized experience to clients and customers. Bank of America’s chatbot is capable of handling any customer query, with predictive analytics, can anticipate customers’ needs and guide them through complex banking procedures. These chatbots can even help customers to make payments, check balances, or save money. These experiences are going a long way in assisting brands in positioning themselves as ‘customer-first.’
4. The Age of Augmented Reality (AR)
The next and most promising digital marketing trend is Augmented reality (AR) has seen raging popularity over the past few years and is predicted to outpace VR in 2020. It has made its presence in digital marketing too and is one of the hottest trends in the field.
AR is already being used by large companies like IKEA. Launched in 2017, the IKEA Place app lets customers see exactly how the furniture would look – and fit – in their homes, even before purchasing their products. This brand of marketing, commonly termed as ‘experiential marketing’ is helping brands like IKEA, give customers those unique experiences that make a difference between purchase and drop-out.