Here are the major trends I see for 2020 in marketing:
Giving consumers more choice on how to be communicated with will be big: According to research from the 2020 Twilio Customer Engagement Survey consumers are becoming increasingly picky about how they want to be contacted. Although email still reigns supreme, some individuals prefer text messaging or phone calls and consumers want to be able to select with a company how to be contacted.
Segmentation/personalization will win: Inboxes are getting more and more sophisticated about filtering out spam and throwing things in promotions. If you want to keep landing in primary folders you should do the following:
- Clean your list. You can start with a tool like Brite Verify or Never bounce
- Make sure prospects or customers have a clear expectation of what they are getting and when
- Create targeted content based on information you gather or through behavioral analytics and segment your email messaging accordingly
Increased focus on social interaction: Social channels, from Facebook, to Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter will continue to be relevant and it is likely that new players like TikTok and others will rise in prominence. Tracking consumer engagement on social channels and tracking social attribution will be valuable to businesses looking for good analytics and relevant segmentation. Remember that really focusing in and gaining a lot of traction on 1–2 social platforms will out perform trying to have a presence on all but not being firmly entrenched on any.
Increased focus on highly visual content/infographics: Based on studies conducted by Marketing Insider Group consumers are gravitating more and more towards highly visual ads and pieces of content. So invest in making some clean infographics and if you need a hand building them, use simplified tools like Canva or Spark.
SEO is still critical and position zero is now a big thing: Have you ever searched for a result on google and found your answer at the very top, before even your organic search results?
Reputation X says it best on how to optimize for this positioning:
“
- First page results. It’s necessary that your page is on the first page of search results for your given search query. Usually in the first five results.
- Relevant information. The answer you provide has to be the right answer, and the information on the page must be relevant to the search term overall.
- Useful formatting. If you’ve formatted your answer like this answer is, or if you’ve got a nice table of information, Google will be more likely to display it. These snippets are taken from
- Prioritize keywords that have high CTR. Use CTR metrics from
(or other, similar tools). The text is taken from
”
You need a chatbot on your website: Whether you use Manychat, Drift, Intercom or even a free chat tool like Facebooks Messenger, you must give your customers a way to connect NOW on your site. Try and be as responsive as possible and capture that interest while it’s hot.
Use quizzes and polls: Use quizzes and polls to capture emails addresses, create social engagement and gain customer insights. Consumers love to get profiled and get personalized feedback in this format and it’s a phenomenal way to gain knowledge on prospects.
Influencer marketing is a thing: People that have a large reach can help get your product review or brand in front of a lot of relevant eyes. Don’t be sketchy with this and pay some random influencer you have no relationship with though to pump your product. Instead, invest in genuinely reaching out and connecting with people who love the same things you love. See if you can help them first. Also build the relationship before going in for the ask.
Optimize for mobile/local: This is an awesome tip straight from Neil Patel, “Did you know that 50% of local mobile searches by a consumer lead to a store visit in a day?
Given that users have local intent when searching on their mobile phones, you need to get the keywords right.
You can gain a lot more business by carefully incorporating the following keywords into your SEO strategy:
- The phrases people use to describe the neighborhood around your location
- “Near me” in your title tags, meta description, internal links, and anchor text
- Landmarks around your business location
- The titles of local institutions that are relevant to your business” This snippet is from
That same article linked above is also talking about the primacy of voice and talks in depth about how to optimize keywords around this new and growing medium.
Big Data will continue to be leveraged by marketing tools: More and more businesses are building tools that scrap big data from huge pools of consumer information and provide targeted information/personsas for B2B tech companies. Gaining these insights will help you as a business owner with segmentation and personalization and there is many platforms that can help you skim this information.
User generated content will continue to grow: This has been a trend several years in the making but it has never been easier for a consumer to run their own webinar, podcast or YouTube channel. As a business owner this not only means you can and should generate your own content, but it also means you should encourage your customers to generate content around your product/service too! Leveraging customer testimonials and customer content is a great way to get your message out in an authentic way.
Musings of Entrepreneurship 