Digital marketing moves quickly. Businesses that hope to stay competitive now need to be much more flexible with their modern marketing processes and strategies. Most marketing departments are evaluating the successes and failures of the last year and looking forward so that that they can keep ahead of emerging trends and technologies. As consumer expectations shift and economic and technological changes occur at such a rapid pace, keeping up with marketing developments is increasingly challenging. Here are the areas that you need to be looking at if you want your marketing to have more of an impact this year and beyond.
Modern marketing processes and strategies
AI in modern marketing
Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere, and it should already be part of your modern marketing plans. Integrating AI into your modern marketing makes it easier to:
- Keep ahead of competitors
- Test new revenue streams
- Cut business costs
- Improve brand to consumer communication
- Deliver personalized communications
Start looking at AI if you aren’t already using it. It could be the key to a much more effective marketing department in 2020.
Getting conversational
Conversational modern marketing is what consumers are looking for. Most consumers communicate with a brand when they want a problem solved, and they want those problems solved as quickly as possible. Whether you use chatbots or customer service employees, conversational marketing means forming real-time connections with consumers and dealing with them on a one-to-one basis.
Video marketing
One of the biggest shifts for marketers has been the prevalence of video content. This is very valuable to marketers because it means having the option to reformat existing content to reach new audiences. However, your marketing team should also be:
- Transcribing video content so that readers have the same access to value
- Uploading to both YouTube and Facebook
- Adopting the use of live video
- Creating personalized video for 1:1 communications
- Optimizing video for SEO
- Making use of 360 ̊ video
Video is fast becoming one of the most important types of content for marketers and consumers. Fail to make use of video and your business will have less impact.
Using data
Marketers that aren’t using real-world data are never going to be as effective or as efficient as their data-driven competitors. Make sure that your marketing team not only has access to the data that they need, but they also know how to use it. Training from 6Sigma, established by Peter Peterka, is growing in popularity because it can teach your marketing team how to “…improve business processes by utilizing statistical analysis rather than guesswork.” This means that marketing decisions can be made that will have more potency and more positive effects in the long and short-term.
Influencers
There are risks to influencer marketing, but for many brands, it is proving indispensable. There is an authenticity to influencer marketing that other formats cannot match, and that is where their value lies. Always be aware of the risks of influencer marketing. The trend towards using influencers with smaller follower numbers remains ongoing, so you should avoid those large accounts that tend to lack engagement and are often followed by nothing more than bots and fake accounts.
Conclusion
The modern marketing world is in a constant state of flux. As tech advances in AI and data gathering continue to grow ever more valuable and audience expectations continue to evolve, marketers need to stay on their toes. Keep up to date with the latest trends, and evaluate each new shift as it relates to your company. Keep ahead of the modern marketing trends and you keep ahead of your competitors, and that can only strengthen your position as an industry leader.
