Digital marketing trends 2018

How digital marketing will change in 2018

13 Main Trends in Digital marketing

In 2018, experts predict a significant shift in digital marketing. The market is changing significantly, new trends are emerging, some channels of promotion are losing their relevance, while others are rapidly growing the inefficiency.

In connection with the need to become more visible and attract more customers, tomorrow’s Digital marketing offers promotion methods using new technologies, as consumers require a more integrated approach.

Forbes specialists told what they think would be the main trends in digital marketing in 2018.

1. Augmented reality, integrated through social media

As our mobile devices become more powerful and social applications integrate better with AR, brands will use AR to interact more effectively with consumers.

For example, using your location, brands can initiate sponsorship content that can only be accessed at the right time and place. Pokémon Go was the pioneer of this idea, and we already see that Instagram and Facebook integrate this technology into their platforms.

2. Influence marketing or Influencer Marketing is the fastest-growing promotion channel

Influence marketing, as a way to promote products and services through opinion leaders and popular bloggers, according to Tomoson’s research, was rated as the fastest growing online channel for customer acquisition, ahead of organic search, contextual advertising and email marketing. Affiliate marketing has shown the worst results in this category, and only 5% of businesses consider it to be the fastest growing channel.

Despite a significant increase in marketing influence, brands require to pay for the result to leaders of opinion. They want to measure the effectiveness of the promotion channel, see the statistics and analyze the return on investment.

3. Implementation of the Customer Journey Mapping or the Client’s travel map

Information about where the client is at each stage of interaction with your company will allow you to look deeper and help to find innovative solutions that will immediately set you apart from competitors. The construction and analysis of the client’s travel map will help to increase the conversion, increase the level of loyalty to the company, increase the involvement and provide comprehensive work with customers at all stages of interaction.

Example of the client’s travel map:

4. More targeted and personalized advertising with more specific goals

With the use of advanced tools, such as Facebook Pixel, targeted advertising will reach a new level. Advertisements will become more unique and personalized, with very specific goals for a specific user, both on mobile devices and on desktop versions. Also, mobile ad platforms will show significant growth in 2018, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat.

5. Live videos are becoming more popular

Live video is a great way to connect with your audience. All social platforms have implemented live video in their arsenal and regularly improve the quality. The basic requirements of users are related to the quality of video broadcasting. A sloppy video with a shaking camera and phone in hand will no longer be acceptable.

6. Conversational UI (user interfaces): Communication of a person with a computer is becoming easier

Voice interactions such as Alexa from Amazon, Siri from the iPhone, Google Assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana, chatbots and others will find more and more space in the everyday life of consumers. Voice communication is the original user interface. This is extremely convenient and will allow brands to interact naturally with consumers who want to receive information, make purchases or just have fun.

7. Video Marketing

Video marketing is becoming the most popular and influential form of digital content, and if done correctly, it can have a very positive impact on your business. As the time for our attention to content decreases, marketers increasingly rely on creating video content to increase user engagement and time spent on the site / social page.

8. Personalized content at all stages of the sales funnel

Non-personalized email is deleted without looking and your ad goes along the way of the fax machine.

Any interaction with the user becomes more and more targeted, focused and personalized to achieve the objectives.

Personalized landing pages should be connected to each of your advertising campaigns. Attention is the currency of the marketer, and creating a personalized connection between the user and your advertising campaign will be key in 2018.

9. Context Targeting Strategies

In the context of the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it is expected that developers of advertising technologies will be more difficult to monitor user behavior using cookies. Audience targeting strategies will be gradually replaced by contextual targeting strategies.

10. Chatbots

Chatbots are used to interact with the audience, customer service issues, general issues and even closing deals.

The crazy thing is that if you set up the bot correctly, it’s very difficult to tell if you’re talking to a real person or bot.

According to BI Intelligence, November 2016 chatbots allow you to save up to 30% of resources, proportionally increasing the overall profitability of the business.

11. Native advertising

Companies striving to increase market coverage, increase brand relevance and improve overall interaction with the target audience can significantly benefit by introducing their advertising in the context of the relevant site and the interests of the user.

Interaction with your audience on thematic venues that are in the context of the user’s interests is perceived as part of the content of the site, while not being identified by users as advertising and therefore does not cause rejection, and also has a greater chance of spreading viral in social networks.

A few more powerful arguments for the use of native advertising

Native advertising spending in the US

12. Digital marketing integration into real life is the key to total customer understanding

With the increasing incidence of smart devices, the development of the Internet of Things, the line between online and offline marketing will increasingly blur. All technologies and benefits of digital marketing will be available in real life.

Here are a few examples of advertisers who really want to use advertising budgets online: for example, the American network of Wendy’s restaurants, with the help of Snapchat geofilters, counted 42,000 users who viewed the advertisement and then came for burgers to the restaurant.

Thus, in the very near future almost all companies will be able to measure the conversion from online to offline (O2OC – Online To Offline Conversion).

13. Voice marketing

Google says that 20% of its mobile requests are voice calls, and this number will only increase as consumers get used to asking Alexa, Siri, and their smart refrigerator what they need to buy. Marketers need to prepare, creating content that captures these types of search, and advertising in non-traditional places (for example, sponsoring recommendations for smart refrigerators).