It’s no news that technology continues to change how we live our lives and how more connected communities between countries and cultures are becoming as a result. Every year new technologies and tools emerge for digital marketers to leverage and to reach and better connect their audiences. Now there are so many new ways to choose from for digital marketers to promote their products, improve customer experience and increase their brand loyalty.

By following the most innovative trends in the digital marketing world, brands can enhance their visibility online and increase their revenue.  Also, it’s crucial for businesses to keep up with the latest development in technology to be able to be aligned with their competition or get ahead of them and to engage their audience or convert them into buying customers.

Businesses that move fast and keep up with the trends will continue to have the upper hand in the years to come. So here are some trends and innovations you can start to integrate to your overall digital marketing strategy this year:

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence concept represents the system where robots or machines can work like human beings in many platforms and provide solutions. Many new tools such as chatbots or voice assistants are developed through using AI. AI enables these tools to act like a person and perform tasks such as taking orders or providing answers.

We will definitely see artificial intelligence being used more in many different types of industries this year as it helps to provide better customer experience, retargeting and personalisation. For digital marketers especially, this technology is able to provide a more in-depth analysis of huge datasets taken from many different platforms. And this allows them to better understand their customers’ behaviour and improve products and services accordingly for more effective digital marketing strategies.

Chatbots

Human beings have the basic need to interact with others and are social and this is why social networks are so popular among many different age groups. That is why it’s important for them to interact with the brands they purchase from and to know that they are being heard by them. With the latest improvements on AI, chatbots now have better abilities to interact with users on websites and hold conversations almost like a human being. This helps to improve customer experience massively as it provides faster answers and it’s a lot cheaper solution than to have a real person as customer support.

Although chatbots had flaws until recently by not making sense and having lack of basic knowledge, new products such as Google’s Meena can now hold end-to-end consistent conversations given any type of context with high relevance.

So it’s important to have implement chatbot technology to your business’ website to improve your customer support as it’s a crucial part of customer loyalty. It also helps to create a better brand perception as it shows that the company takes innovative approaches for its customers.

Augmented Reality

The usage of augmented reality has been embraced by many consumers brands’ advertising strategy. AR technology makes it possible for customers to interact with the products or services before actually purchasing them. It also helps to target larger audiences as it adds an entertainment element to the content.

By using AR technologies, brands are able to produce more personalised content using the image and video customization especially on mobile devices which also provide more interactive and innovative solutions. Although it may require bigger budgets, it’s still important for marketers to keep an eye on AR developments and see how they can integrate it into their content marketing strategies.

Voice Search

You may have already heard that it’s expected that half of all online searches will be made through voice search by 2020. As more households start to use voice assistants such as Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa voice search has started to disrupt SEO strategies and the way customers look for information.

Just like chatbots, voice assistants provide answers right away and even “on-the-go” so it’s becoming more appealing for many customers. To be able to benefit from these changing customer behaviour, businesses need to really understand how their potential customers are looking for information to increase their traffic. It’s important for brands to review their current SEO strategy and adapt it to voice search optimization to get ahead of their competitors in the search engines’ rankings.

Going Forward

The innovations listed above are the features marketers should keep in mind as they shape their strategies in the future. As we see the trend of personalization increasingly becoming more prominent, marketers should leverage these latest technologies to have more effective strategies.

Using tools like data segmentation, targeting and personalized experiences of products and services will be beneficial for brands to increase their engagement and reach.  These new ways of shopping experiences are shaped through AI-based technologies will continue to be determinant factors of a brand’s success.

Developing a digital marketing strategy that has the latest innovations integrated has never been more important so contact us if you think your strategy needs to be transformed to be ready for the future.

About the Author

Hande is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur, Principal of WSI London, founder of Quattro Business Consulting, co-founder of Think Neuro and Buddy Performance. She is independent Board Member in verous companies and institutions. She has studied Industrial Engineering, has worked with 200 clients from different parts of the world and she has 20 years of consulting experience.