Top five marketing predictions

By Simone Sangha, Liniar.

I’m going to explore the five key marketing predictions for 2020 and beyond, based on my own research. Some of the factors mentioned have developed over the last few months and some are re-inventing existing processes and, if implemented correctly, they should give you an edge this year.

Voice Search. Devices such as smart speakers are becoming more commonplace in households. Owners of these devices expect answers to their questions and their transactions to be instantaneous. With over 50% of searches in 2020 predicted to come through voice, optimising for voice search will come with many advantages for your brand.

The global movement to perfect search for voice means marketers will need to optimise their SEO in order to be seen by Google. However, this does pose the question: how will platforms such as Analytics monitor this in future as there is nothing currently in place?

I will discuss this in more depth this year in my regular Glass Times column, and give my recommendations on the best ways to optimise for this in 2020.

  1. I’ve seen more of a shift to using digital platforms in this industry, with significant investment in automation; I predict this to become even bigger in 2020. With AI and automated platforms becoming more predominant, businesses will find valuable insights to take advantage of and further improve customer journeys; generating quality leads in real-time.

Although often more costly than some of the others mentioned, I do recommend seeing how AI can help you improve processes for the future, as continuous growth in AI is inevitable and you don’t want to be left behind.

Social stories and codification. Something I’ve categorically seen a rise in recently is social media stories, and the concept of sharing a story with viewers to create a greater sense of loyalty with brands.

There are several benefits of using stories, including: brand awareness, cost-effectiveness, and increasing traffic to specific web pages. Additionally, platforms such as Instagram are now using influencers on a much larger scale and are clearly seeing benefit from this method to boost sales.

Remember the importance of brand codification, and this doesn’t always have to be your logo. I went to the Festival of Marketing last year and this is something that has stuck at the forefront of my mind. The significance of standing out using codes such as your brand colours is imperative on anything you do. As Mark Ritson (2019) stated: “Distinctiveness is a marketer’s main challenge.”

Personalisation. Whether email campaigns or targeted adverts online, customers seem to react more positively to a personalised approach. An example of the way we do this here at Liniar is the AdWords campaign we run, where we target individuals on dynamic adverts based on which pages they’ve visited, and tailor our ads to match these preferences (this is also known as re-targeting). This, in turn, decreases bounce rate and encourages more engagement.

Reviews. In the year 2020 and beyond, customers are not only looking for instant answers and gratification online but relying on more traditional methods such as word of mouth.

This is now all digital of course, as customers rely on word of mouth to make purchase decisions (no matter how big or small). Reviews are the new and approved version of word of mouth and a significant part of the consumer journey; mainly due to enhancing a brand’s credibility and giving the prospective consumer a sense of ease that they’ve ‘done the right thing’.

Making the biggest impact to your 2020 marketing includes increasing positive reviews for your brand, leading to long-term gains. Some of the other 2020 predictions are already in the early stages of their lifecycle. Adapting to these is key to staying ahead of your competition this year.