Dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing trends con­tin­ue to shift and grow. While some gen­er­al trends remain the same, oth­ers evolve; and some are entire­ly new, intro­duc­ing mar­keters to emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy. Fol­low along below to learn about which of the lat­est trends in dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing to imple­ment in your strat­e­gy in 2019.

Here are the latest digital marketing trends:

Connected TV

Con­nect­ed TV (CTV) saw a huge amount of growth in 2018, and its suc­cess is expect­ed to rise through­out the com­ing year. In fact, it is pre­dict­ed that 2019 will see CTV user count rise to 190 mil­lion active users. CTV grants unpar­al­leled mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, as more detailed con­sumer infor­ma­tion is avail­able than ever before, and adver­tis­ers can tar­get incred­i­bly point­ed niche groups. 

While CTV is a new­er tech­nol­o­gy that takes some adapt­ing to, adver­tis­ers favor effi­cient adver­tis­ing efforts, mak­ing this vehi­cle promi­nent and show­ing huge poten­tial for trac­tion and growth. 

Augmented Reality

Select indus­tries and brands are slow­ly inte­grat­ing aug­ment­ed real­i­ty oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­sumers. IKEA, for exam­ple, offers an aug­ment­ed real­i­ty solu­tion in which con­sumers can place IKEA fur­ni­ture in an uploaded pho­to of their home to see how it will look. Be cre­ative with how you can pro­vide an aug­ment­ed real­i­ty mar­ket­ing experience! 

Instagram TV

Insta­gram TV (IGTV) launched in 2018 and is mak­ing its posi­tion fixed in 2019. As con­sumers con­tin­ue to favor video and the inter­net evolves to meet this pref­er­ence, IGTV is gain­ing more view­ers and loy­al users, attract­ing more influ­encers and brands to the plat­form every day. 

Using IGTV as an adver­tis­ing plat­form can be uti­lized by pro­vid­ing inter­views, show­ing prod­uct tuto­ri­als, engag­ing with influ­encers, going behind the scenes or pro­vid­ing short enter­tain­ment videos. How­ev­er, you opt to use the video chan­nel, be sure to pri­or­i­tize the qual­i­ty of your con­tent, using high-qual­i­ty pro­duc­tion equip­ment and pro­fes­sion­al edit­ing services. 

Remem­ber that IGTV will evolve into a future plat­form, so take advan­tage of gath­er­ing con­sumer data while on the plat­form. Find out what view­ers want to watch, whom your fol­low­ers tune into, and which videos pro­vide a high con­ver­sion rate. 

Visual search

Now that users can take a pho­to of their friend’s purse and find it (or some­thing sim­i­lar) for sale online, it is imper­a­tive that you opti­mize your web­site, con­tent, and adver­tis­ing efforts for visu­al search. 

Targeted content marketing 

While you’ve been care­ful­ly curat­ing con­tent for your con­sumers for years, 2019 invites you to cre­ate and push con­tent that is curat­ed on an indi­vid­ual basis. Con­tent gen­er­a­tion might grow and require resources, but ROI is abun­dant with each con­sumer feel­ing per­son­al­ly addressed and heard. Get­ting famil­iar with AI and data analy­sis can help direct you toward what con­tent to pro­duce for which consumers. 

Voice

Voice search­es respond with few­er solu­tions; if you want your web­site to show up as the sug­gest­ed hub for answers, your con­tent must be primed to per­fec­tion and fol­low the advanced SEO guide­lines that are adapt­ed specif­i­cal­ly for voice search. 

When adapt­ing your writ­ten con­tent for a ver­bal response, con­sid­er mak­ing your tone of voice and word choice more con­ver­sa­tion­al. Prac­tice speak­ing out loud what your writ­ten con­tent says — does it read well? Does it pro­vide an answer eas­i­ly? If not, rework your con­tent so that Siri, Alexa, or Google can apt­ly read your infor­ma­tion for your next poten­tial customer. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, you might start pro­vid­ing your own voice-overs on your web­site, apps, and adver­tise­ments. Try link­ing up with an influ­encer to whose voice your users already respond well.

Voice search trend

Progressive Web Apps

Pro­gres­sive web apps (PWA) are a hap­py medi­um for brands who want an app but do not have the avail­able resources to cre­ate one. PWAs allow con­sumers to save your web­site as an app exten­sion on their phone home screen, increase the imme­di­a­cy of your brand and over­all engage­ment experience. 

Ben­e­fits of PWA:

  • Smart­phone shortcuts 
  • No app development
  • Nobody needs to download
  • Bet­ter user experience
  • Faster load­ing times

Omnichannel marketing

Draw your mar­ket­ing cam­paign across all chan­nels and exten­sions of your brand. If a cus­tomer likes your post on Insta­gram, show an adver­tise­ment for this item as they browse online lat­er on, and send an email with the item being show­cased after a day or two. 

Native advertising

Native advert­ing is grow­ing more pop­u­lar, embed­ding adver­tise­ments that do not nec­es­sar­i­ly look like adver­tis­ing. Even if con­sumers start to rec­og­nize the native adver­tise­ment, they appre­ci­ate your effort to blend in and not dis­rupt their con­tent con­sump­tion experience.

Chatbots

Chat­bots are noth­ing new in 2019, but their preva­lence is ris­ing and becom­ing more impor­tant. When chat­bots first emerged, their pres­ence was a lit­tle con­fus­ing, even off-putting at times. Now, cus­tomers expect to find a chat­bot when they vis­it your website. 

Speak­ing direct­ly to a cus­tomer rep­re­sen­ta­tive helps con­sumers find answers, nav­i­gate your site, and con­nect imme­di­ate­ly with your brand. Using this tech­nol­o­gy saves you mon­ey, pleas­es your con­sumer base, and gives you an oppor­tu­ni­ty to col­lect data about your con­sumers 24 hours a day. 

Additional benefits of chatbots:

  • Cost-effec­tive
  • 24-hour cus­tomer service
  • Instant response
  • Sim­ple answers
  • Flu­id communication
  • Resolve com­plaints
  • Expert answers
  • Com­plex ques­tions answered
  • Approach­able
  • Accom­mo­date ser­vices (e.g. tick­et purchase)

Live video

In 2018, going live on Face­book and Insta­gram picked up pop­u­lar­i­ty; in 2019, this trend will con­tin­ue to grow and become not only com­mon but expect­ed. The live video invites con­sumers behind the scenes of your com­pa­ny; it por­trays a per­son­al side of your brand; it offers you a chance to go off-script from your typ­i­cal mar­ket­ing messaging. 

Though live video has a can­did ele­ment to it, it is impor­tant to embrace this plat­form, invest­ing in qual­i­ty pro­duc­tion equip­ment and ensur­ing that your video is edit­ed professionally. 

Adding to the trend in this com­ing year is the influx of social media influ­encers going live on behalf of your brand. As you find influ­encers to work with, invite them to take over your pro­file and go live. An influ­encer takeover takes heat off you for need­ing to step into an online video per­sona, it attracts your influencer’s fol­low­ers to your pro­file, and it keeps you tech­no­log­i­cal­ly and trend relevant. 

Instagram

Insta­gram is still an impor­tant plat­form to use, tak­ing advan­tage of shar­ing your con­tent with its 1+ bil­lion users. Social media plat­forms are bound to shift, evolve, and change over the years, but uti­lize Insta­gram while it is rel­e­vant. The skills you gain from exe­cut­ing cam­paigns on the plat­form now will strength­en your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing skill set for future trends.

instagram 2019

User-generated content

Invite your users to cre­ate con­tent that you can (and will!) share across your plat­forms. User-gen­er­at­ed con­tent is impor­tant and use­ful for a few reasons. 

  • First, con­sumers want to be con­nect­ed: they want to know what fel­low con­sumers of your brand are think­ing, doing, and car­ing about. This means they care about what con­tent your users have to share! 
  • Sec­ond, you get con­tent (as long as it is qual­i­ty — do not post poor qual­i­ty con­tent!) for free. 
  • Third, you learn more about con­sumer interests. 
  • And final­ly, you hand some author­i­ty to your con­sumers, estab­lish­ing a deep­er sense of trust between you two.

Personalized email

We know by now the impor­tance of per­son­al­iz­ing email cam­paigns, address­ing con­sumers by name, send­ing emails for birth­days, and includ­ing con­tent that their spe­cif­ic con­sumer pro­file has pro­ject­ed they will appre­ci­ate. We can get even more per­son­al as tech­nol­o­gy pro­gress­es and allows us to track con­sumer clicks and time spent look­ing at shop­ping cart items. 

When a cus­tomer leaves a full shop­ping cart in your online store, send an email with con­tent about how to wear the sweater in the cart and a coupon code to pur­chase the item at a discount. 

Events and experiences 

Tech­nol­o­gy might be evolv­ing, but it is still impor­tant to con­nect with users at grass­roots events. We can all under­stand and argue about the impor­tance of in-per­son com­mu­ni­ca­tion, so keep these types of events in your mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, and bridge them with your dig­i­tal strat­e­gy by adding online com­po­nents, vir­tu­al tune-ins, and tying the event to a dig­i­tal campaign. 

Depend­ing on your con­sumer base, you might run in the oppo­site direc­tion and make your events exclu­sive­ly in-per­son, requir­ing cus­tomers to meet your brand and get a feel for your prod­ucts or ser­vices in per­son. This strat­e­gy works for a high­er pro­file exclu­siv­i­ty-inclined consumer. 

Reminders for 2019 Marketing Trends

  • Stay inno­v­a­tive – don’t be afraid to be the first in your indus­try to try a new mar­ket­ing tactic.
  • Col­lect data — in every mar­ket­ing effort, gath­er data you can ana­lyze to bet­ter under­stand your consumer. 
  • Set (and com­pare against) goals — always set a goal and exe­cute a mar­ket­ing effort against it.
  • Invest in qual­i­ty — only share con­tent that is high-qual­i­ty; this goes far­ther in SEO, rep­u­ta­tion, and con­ver­sion rates.
  • It’s okay to fail a lit­tle – if you drop the ball on a mar­ket­ing attempt, extract the les­son and try again. 
  • Choose influ­encers mind­ful­ly – find the influ­encers that gen­uine­ly con­nect with both your brand and their fol­low­ers, and invite them to be a part of your brand family.

Dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing trends are con­stant­ly evolv­ing and impor­tant to fol­low. As adver­tis­ing chan­nels diver­si­fy and reach new poten­tial, it is imper­a­tive you stay up to date to more accu­rate­ly imple­ment new mar­ket­ing tac­tics into your dig­i­tal and tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing strategies.

Rosy Strate­gies is a leader in dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing solu­tions. Learn about our soft­ware pro­grams that can help cat­a­pult your mar­ket­ing efforts and guide you through upcom­ing trends in 2019 by get­ting in touch with a mem­ber of our team, today.