Marketing is a very difficult challenge for many businesses. You’re going up against tough competition that is just as eager to get consumers as you are. The amount of creativity and dedication that is needed to get your business to the top is astounding. With this in mind, it’s not an impossible task. You just need to know how to apply the right trends to your marketing strategy. Here are a few examples worth noting.
Focus on the “customer experience”
People often say that the customer experience is the next big thing in marketing for any given year, even though it has always been a staple of quality marketing. So, what’s so different this time around? You could say that the approach is poised to change with new technology and new methods being used to give consumers a much more immersive and interesting marketing presentation. At the same time, the methods themselves have taken on a more hands-on approach.
You’re not trying to get people to just like your company or want to work in it. There’s a lot more to it nowadays. You want to create an experience that will make them feel like they’re being addressed directly and pampered. In essence, you want to provide quality service in whichever way your business does so, with an added touch of courtesy and respect. It’s not enough that you’re better than the competition; you also have to be special in how you treat consumers.
With the internet, the playing field has changed drastically. There are many more ways to introduce your products, services, and business without having to go out of your way. All you need is a bit of empathy and a lot of marketing strategies. You have to keep your customers informed about products and how they will directly impact their lives, while also showing relevant examples. Personalize the marketing experience and show them ads that cater to their needs at the exact right timeframe. This not only puts you at the forefront of their thoughts in an opportune time, but it also makes your message stick more effectively. The better the customer experience, the more likely that they will enjoy doing business with your brand.
Visualization in content
There has been an enormous shift in marketing media when it comes to the type of content you utilize. In the past few years, you’ve probably noted the number of different smart speakers and personal assistants that have started becoming regular parts of peoples’ homes. It seems like marketing is changing rapidly and introducing methods while neglecting others. At least, this is what you might think if you don’t look at the numbers.
While voice searches and personal assistants are on the rise, they aren’t nearly as popular as another crucial form of content: visual. It’s hard to describe how important visual content is in the internet age. You have a short amount of time to get your point across, and people don’t owe you their time to focus on what you’re saying or writing down. Every kind of visual content gives you a kind of edge. You’re making something that’s eye-catching and people don’t necessarily want to look away.
Think videos, for example. They can be made to be interesting beyond your wildest imagination. You’ve probably seen viral ad videos that have taken the world by storm, reaching every media forum within days, and becoming social phenomena overnight. This is what you should be aiming for. You want exposure in an organic and fascinating way.
How do you go about doing this? Obviously, you want to pour in resources into creativity and unique design. It’s one of the more difficult aspects of creating videos, as they tend to be on the more expensive side of things. On the other hand, the numbers don’t lie. What you pour into videos you get twice over once your campaign has concluded. Keep this in mind when forming your business’s marketing strategy.
Voice searches
Speaking of voice searches, this is something you should still pay attention to. The rapid rise of personal home assistants like Siri and Alexa is a sign of things to come. People want the futuristic convenience of being able to talk to an AI and have them get the products or services they want. How does this tie-in to your marketing strategy? There are a few ways.
Consider your SEO strategy for a minute. You’re obviously going to optimize your website and social media in such a way that your text posts and videos are at the forefront. However, there are other aspects that need to be considered. Have you optimized your website for voice searches? Many businesses still haven’t. This can be detrimental to your marketing strategy, especially on a local level.
Think about it this way. You have a phone in your hand and want to make sure you get a product in the other one as soon as possible. You’re probably not going to use a voice search when ordering a couch from another country. You don’t expect to see it for a while, so you can start searching later. When it comes to everyday essentials and luxuries, a voice search will make it a lot more convenient to look for things.
This is why you want to corner the local market with voice searches. Check the most common keywords utilized in voice searches for your market and make sure you know how to apply them. For example, voice searches will be a lot longer and more complex than you might expect from a regular text search. People are saying entire sentences to their home device and not just blurting out a few keywords. Make sure you have sentences covered so that search engines can figure out it’s your business that’s being shown to the person searching. There are a lot of things you have to watch out when optimizing SEO, so make sure you do your due diligence in time.
Offline marketing efforts
The internet might be at the forefront of current marketing strategies, but it’s not the only important thing to watch out for. Any business that neglects their local marketing efforts will slowly start losing a grip on one of the more important business blocks that they have. It’s a market that shouldn’t be disregarded at any cost.
People use the internet for their shopping and browsing, there’s no denying that. But they don’t really trust it all that much. People want to be sure that their shopping leads to the products and services that they really want. They don’t want to risk spending money for something that they can’t even see in person to check it out.
This is why local markets consistently remain profitable for businesses. It’s a lot nicer to go shopping in a local store than to simply browse a website and wait days or weeks for that product to arrive. At the same time, marketing efforts seem to be a lot more effective when applied at a local level.
Setting up a billboard might seem excessive and unnecessary, but it’s a very effective way to get your message across in your city. Thousands of people will pass by it, and there’s no way that they don’t see your message, while online methods are pretty easy to skip over. Other marketing methods like setting up banners, T-shirt printing, and small item merchandising give you the opportunity to remain creative and effectively reach the local population. You could spend a fraction of the money you use for online marketing and achieve amazing results. Don’t underestimate the local market; it should be an integral part of your marketing campaign.
AI Automation
As previously mentioned, AI is a pretty big deal in marketing right now. However, it’s not just something that helps assistants answer questions and find your desired products, there’s quite a lot more to it. AI helps companies utilize the data they collect to provide the ideal personalized experience for their customers.
You want your marketing efforts to mean something to consumers so that they are more likely to enjoy your brand messaging and buy products. This level of personalization is nearly impossible to do with simple manpower. You need advanced algorithms to compile and utilize the data you collect in an effective way.
Big data, when supported by AI, helps businesses get to know their consumers and create the perfect marketing experiences through ads and emails. Make sure you invest in this part of your marketing strategy for optimal results.
Conclusion
There are many different marketing methods and tips that you can apply to your strategy to make it more effective in 2020. There’s more ground to cover than ever, but any business can achieve bigger successes with just a little bit of effort and lots of research. Keep the above methods in mind for your next marketing strategy and you’ll find that it will be quite a bit more effective than before.
Stella Ryne is an art historian, traveller, conscious consumer and a proud mother. When she is not trying to improve the things around her (and herself, for that matter), she likes to lose herself in a good book. Stay in touch with Stella via Twitter and Facebook.
