The one constant in life is change—and that’s true now more than ever. Sometimes, change can be scary. But what if we could reframe our perspective?
In marketing, being nimble and quick to adapt means never getting left behind. That’s why we’re always scouring the industry for new trends to make sure we’re bringing our clients the best and most relevant strategic recommendations. Because at the end of the day, change is challenging—but is there anything worth doing in life that isn’t?
Check out the top three digital marketing trends we have our eye on right now, and get a new point of view on your brand’s online strategy.
Over the past year, Google has rolled out several new updates and enhancements to help advertisers up their game. But we think the most exciting by far is the addition of the Discovery ad. Why? We’re so glad you asked. Discovery ads use an immersive and interactive new ad format, giving advertisers the opportunity to use visually compelling images in a carousel format to tell their brand story. This results in a truly powerful brand awareness play. But that’s not all.
Thanks to machine learning, Google will serve up the best combinations of your headlines, descriptions, and images using prospect behavior, similar to their responsive ads. Discovery ads will live on Google Discover (which offers access to more than 800 million users worldwide), but they will also show up on YouTube’s mobile home feed and Gmail’s social and promotions tabs. That all adds up to a trend worth exploring! We’re already reaping the benefits of this new ad format, just released in June 2020.
This one might still sound sort of space-agey, iRobot-esque to you, but trust us: AI is the future of digital marketing. Put simply, AI is the progression of machine learning, or teaching our technology to anticipate our needs before we even realize we have them. AI is already being widely used in online marketing practices, although you may not even be aware of it. Amazon uses AI to produce product recommendations for us based on our buying preferences, and Google uses it to create smarter YouTube suggestions to further burden us with binge-watching. So, how can smaller brands begin to implement it and ride the rewards of this trend?
One way we’ve recently started leveraging artificial intelligence at Rawle Murdy is through the use of chatbots. This conversational marketing tactic is designed to build a relationship with the consumer the second they land on your site. This year, our digital team had the pleasure of building a chatbot for our tourism client, Jackson County TDA, and it was a blast! We’re already seeing an uptick in users engaging with the chatbot since our launch in May. While there are several different types of chatbots to choose from, the results remain the same: they are a useful and effective way to engage with consumers, help people plan trips, showcase relevant content, and more.
It’s 2020, and voice-activated digital assistants like Siri and Alexa are continuing to trend with no sign of slowing down. According to recent studies, more than half of all smartphone users are engaging with voice search in some way in 2020, and 46% of users who use voice search daily are searching for local businesses. That means you could get your brand in front of them first—if you phrase your keywords correctly.
Research shows that exploring the difference between how a user would type a search query vs. how they would actually phrase the question for voice search could really pay off, so keep this in mind when writing content to increase your visibility. For example, you could create an FAQs page for your website that’s full of keywords phrased in terms of how a person would phrase the question when using voice search. When someone uses voice search to ask relevant questions, your results will pop up more frequently. They’ve got questions, you’ve got alllll the answers.
THINK YOU COULD USE A SET OF FRESH EYES ON YOUR BRAND’S ONLINE STRATEGY? OUR DIGITAL GURUS ARE MORE THAN HAPPY TO TAKE A LOOK.
