There is a particular theme or keyword you could use to sum up all of the new year’s resolutions and it focuses on interactivity.
If you’re a marketer working in-house or at an agency there is one thing that everybody is expecting from you, well, us, as a collective - interactivity.
We must be interactive in our communications and behaviour, and we must produce much more interactive work and results than ever before.
Particularly if your core role is digital marketing, you should be seen as being sat at the cusp of all things digital, meaning you embrace new technologies and innovations and share them with your networks wholeheartedly.
Personalised brand experiences
A rise in AI technologies and take-up by marketers means you too should be focusing on creating a ‘personalised brand experience’. This could mean launching a carefully-curated retargeting Google Ads or social ads campaign to bring back previous visitors or ‘abandoned carts’ to your website. Or it could be that you take-up marketing automation methods to provide a full-circle marketing campaign for every single site visitor you get, personalised depending on the action they take on your site.
Have they downloaded your Weddings Brochure? Send them supporting information including tips about venues, region-specific details about suppliers and vendors, and finally email them your appointments diary to book them in for a unique consultation - tailored based on their use of your website to date.
Social media influencers
Micro-influencers are becoming “big players” in 2020. If you’ve engaged with influencers before, or are considering it for 2020, rethink who you ask to promote and rep your brand. A lot of social media users are being turned off by big names who’ve bought likes and falsified engagement, or are oversubscribed to other organisations instead, ‘real people’ want to see ‘real people’ who genuinely have a love for the brand they’re cheering on.
Remember, as the average social media user gets increasingly savvy to the influencer/brand relationship, it’s important that you rethink your strategy to ensure your influencers aren’t, ultimately, negatively impacting your social footprint.
Chatbots are developing
Chatbots are starting to build deeper, more contextual relationships with their customers. Invest in a chatbot if you have a substantial customer service team and take the plunge with a ‘higher investment’ that can have better rewards. Continuous improvements are being made to the capabilities and conversational abilities of these chatbots and it could be worth your time and money to invest in one that can save you hiring additional customer service reps.
Some of 2020’s chatbots will be able to hold conversations that includes the ability to recognise a change in context, so they can offer different services based on what the prospect is asking in the chat pane. These very bots can ask the right questions, gain information about pain points, real quotes and create seemingly authentic conversations with your visitors - 24/7.
New content methods
The types of content marketing that people are willing to engage with is changing. Whatever your stance is on video vs blogs vs podcasts is irrelevant because there’s a new option in town - interactive content.
Yes, you’d have much preferred to engage with this post as you navigated it, according to research. People are looking for quizzes, polls, live video (to engage with), augmented reality and shoppable posts - they want to be at the centre of their shopping and research experiences, and they want brands to make them feel that way.
