Are you ready for what 2020 might bring?

It may sound crazy that us marketers are already talking about 2020, but the reality is that most organizations do their budgeting this time of year (if not earlier). In order to help our clients plan how to allocate their marketing dollars, we have to know what the latest trends are. Here are 5 things to look out for next year:    

1. Content is still king, especially if that content is video. 

With lots of noise online, the competition to stay in front of, and relevant to, users is tough. 

"It's more important than ever to have have quality and engaging content and that's where video comes in." - Lindsay Moura, Senior Digital Account Strategist.

On Facebook, 62 percent of its users said they were more interested in buying a product after seeing a video about it. When creating video, keep in mind that a whopping 85% of Facebook videos are viewed without sound whereas on Instagram, 60% of Stories are viewed with sound on. This means your videos should make sense when played with and without sound. 

2. Rank above position one with featured snippets. 

Everyone and their mother are competing for the top spot on the search engine results page (also known as SERP). Google’s featured snippets (those handy sections Google pulls for you at the top of the results page) help users quickly find the answers they’re looking for. If your pages don’t clearly answer your customers’ questions or aren’t easily crawlable by Google, they’ll only continue to get pushed down in the search results. The good news is that unlike in the game of online advertising, you don’t have to have the big bucks to score a featured snippet.    

3. Personalization that’s multi-channel. 

A personalized experience across several touchpoints means people only see the content that’s most relevant to them. It also means you’re not wasting time and money promoting something they don’t need or want. In short, personalization is a win-win for everyone! In order for personalization to work, you need to know how to gather and analyze data coming from all sorts of places. For example, our self-proclaimed data geeks work meticulously to segment audiences and cater the messaging to reach customers we know are in the market for a new home and need a mortgage.  

4. Smart bidding in Google Ads.  

Machine learning has been creeping its way into digital marketing for years and Google has jumped on board. At this year’s Google Marketing Live event, it was announced that as paid media experts, we can now better utilize smart bidding strategies within Google Ads by being able to set goals at the campaign level, create a set of conversion actions, and make adjustments for seasonality. Smart bidding will automatically optimize bids. 

5. Optimize for voice search. 

“Alexa, get me more leads.”  

Well, no, it’s not quite that easy! But, as people continue to rely on smart speaker devices like Siri and Alexa, it’ll be important to optimize your website for voice search, playing close attention to long tail keywords by incorporating them into your copy and meta data.  

Not sure how to stay on top of these trends? Our team of digital marketers are happy to answer your questions and are ready to be your trusted partner. Contact us today or learn more about our digital marketing services.