Nick Sicoly
Happy New Year everyone! With the new year upon us, New Year’s resolutions are in full swing. It is the perfect time to research, plan and test the latest strategies of online marketing. As 2018 progressed, lots of new technology emerged, creating new and exciting opportunities for digital marketing.
Here are 7 digital marketing trends that marketers should know about heading into 2019.
Digital Marketing Plan
Before you can run any plays, you need a playbook! A big trend that will emerge this year isn’t just utilizing digital marketing channels, but also researching what will work best for your business. It’s not always the best idea to just throw some money in pay-per-click and hope to see results.
According to a study done by Ignite Visibility, businesses of all sizes are planning to shift more of their marketing budget to digital in 2019. Set some time by yourself or with your team to brainstorm and discuss which digital marketing channels might work best for your business. HubSpot offers free marketing plan templates that you can use to organize your ideas.
Don’t know where to begin with your digital plan? We can help you get started with a Digital Marketing Strategy.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
We’ve all had that moment where we are searching for a product and a couple hours later you’re seeing ads for it on Facebook. That is artificial intelligence (AI) at work. AI analyzes internet search patterns, buyer behaviour, and data from blog posts, social media sites, and other channels to make it easy for businesses to understand how users find their products and services.
There have been major advances in AI over the past few years, but it is bound to really take off in 2019. Humans have always been good at collecting large amounts of customer data but have struggled with putting it to use. We are finally starting to understand how AI can use this data effectively in areas such as customer segmentation, notifications, customer retargeting, click tracking and more.
Of
Video
Video marketing has been on the rise for some time now and it figures to get even bigger in 2019. According to Hubspot, 43% of people want to see more video content from marketers in the future. There are plenty of reasons why you should consider video in your marketing plan and here are few statistics from Blue Corona to prove it:
- 55% of people watch videos online every day (MWP)
- 66% of shoppers say
video has given them shopping ideas, and more than 90% of them say they’ve discovered products and brands on YouTube (Google, 2018) - 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions.
- 97% of marketers say
video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service, 76% say it helped them increase sales, and 7% say it helped them reduce support queries (Hubspot, 2018) - 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social videos (Tubular Insights, 2017)
- Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users (VidYard)
As you can see, there are plenty of reasons to support implmenting video marketing into your 2019 marketing plan.
Voice Search
Hey Alexa, what can you tell me about voice search?
Voice search exploded onto the scene in 2018 and presents one of the biggest marketing channels in 2019. According to the Consumer Technology Association, smart speakers are the fastest growing technology in Canada, with 15% of Canadian households having at least one smart speaker.
As we mentioned earlier, AI is getting smarter, and the number of mistakes made by popular voice assistants like Alexa, Google Home and Siri has reduced. In 2019, more users will use voice search to order items online and control smart home devices. Domino’s has already taken advantage of this by implementing a new voice ordering system that is compatible with multiple apps and devices.
To give even more power to voice search, it is expected that voice ads will be introduced in the near future. Siri might give answers to questions along with a “word from the sponsors.” This means that you can buy a voice advertisement space – think Google AdWords for your speakers.
Live Chat
Move over phone calls and online forms, live chat is taking over.
Chatbots are also becoming increasingly popular because of their ease of use for both the customer and business. No longer do you have to wait for a return email or phone call. This instant messaging technology allows users to chat in real-time with a sales rep or business owner.
Like the other items on this list, chatbots are expected to improve in 2019. One example of their capabilities can be seen with Drift.
Drift is a conversational platform that uses chatbots for communicating with website visitors, scheduling meetings, fulfilling support requests, and driving campaign
Influencer Marketing
You have probably seen celebrities endorsing a product of some sort on social media. This is known as influencer marketing. this marketing strategy can be considered a hybrid between old-school celebrity endorsements mixed with new-school content marketing.
Influencer marketing involves using popular celebrities and online figures to market a brand’s products or services. It differs from traditional marketing in that these influencers market brands organically to their followers, instead of using commercials or advertisements.
Take Unbox Therapy for example. They test and review popular tech and gadgets. Any good review or endorsement can be seen as a form of organic marketing since the positive reaction is influencing viewers to purchase that product (In fact, I bought an Andar wallet as a result of this video).
Heading into 2019, the demand for professional influencers will continue to grow, along with the demand for smaller, more local influencers. With the introduction of Instagram TV and the steady growth of Instagram & Youtube users, influencer marketing will be very important this new year.
Visual Search
This cutting-edge search feature is a tool that allows users to upload an image and run an internet search to get more accurate results. For example, the new Google Lens app that is only available on Pixel phones can identify landmarks, objects, give you instant book reviews, identify paintings and save contacts from a business card. Pinterest Lens’ is a similar app that can give you design ideas when you snap a photo of an item.
Search engines are getting better at understanding images, giving more flexibility to users when they want to search for something they see. As
