There is a dramatic shift in online marketing. You either join or you die. The truth is; the marketing strategies that you used in 2018 may not work this year. Fortunately, we have looked into the new types of online marketing to help you remain on top of your business this year. Here are types of online marketing that you need to start paying attention to in 2019.
1. Artificial Intelligence
Why is artificial intelligent among the top marketing strategies in 2019? Artificial intelligence is here to stay. Most brands are now using this strategy to analyses customer’s behaviour and search trends by use of data from search engines and social media channels. This way a brand is able to understand how users perceive their products or services.
Adopting artificial intelligence for your business is a great way to cut down costs, increase growth and get ahead of your competition. This strategy helps you personalize each lead so that you are able to turn them into sales qualified leads. Isn’t that interesting?
2. Augmented Realities and Virtual Realities (AR&VR)
Users are seriously seeking engagement in any brand’s services and products. They want to keep active and be involved as much as possible. This is where the AV and AR come in; these strategies offer a brand an excellent room in the customer experience field.
Several brands are giving their users an opportunity to try out different products before buying them! Magical isn’t it? Some brands are way ahead of their competitors a result using this marketing strategy to instil trust in their potential clients.
- The trend is still growing, as for you, it is time to experiment and take your business to new heights.
3. Chatbots
Do you wonder why social media such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are so popular? People are naturally social. They love to talk and be heard. So how do you use chatbots to your advantage? The best way to become closer to your customers is to allow you to talk to you at their own timing and only chatbots enable you to do so.
Chatbots will allow you to answer your visitor’s questions and have a decent conversation just the way a customer representative would. All this is made possible by the tremendous improvement made to artificial intelligence.
- Chatbots are way cheaper than a human customer support system and one advantage is that it can answer questions in a short time.
They have the potential to increase your monthly conversations fast and in 2019, they are likely to improve and take over online marketing in a few years to come.
4. Voice search
According to Google, about one-third of the 3.6 billion searches on Google each day are voice searches. Personal assistant devices have also significantly improved their capacity to recognize a human voice. There are several people using Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google assistant each day to search for information on the website and get things done in their environment.
Is a shift to voice search good for a marketer? Research shows that in 2017 voice search on mobile was at 27% of all searches on Android gadgets. Here is why voice searches are getting popular and increasing conversions:
- Faster: You will agree that people talk faster than they write which means one can perform a voice search in a twinkle of an eye.
- Easy to use: Voice search makes it more convenient for people who are always moving around to talk to their smartphones rather than type.
A study conducted By Edison Researchers found that about 35 per cent of smart speaker owners purchased an item they were interested in while 39 per cent actually added an item in an online shopping cart for later viewing.
A good number of people using voice search are performing a local search; this means that these people are intending to buy from a local business. Here is how to optimize your website for that:
- Voice searches are done as a conversation. People perform voice searches as if they are talking to someone. It is, therefore, important to ensure that your content is friendly and in a conversation style. People are voice searching questions and complete sentences, not a specific keyword as in typed searches.
- Voice searches tend to be longer than the typical typed searches since they are less tedious. The best way to have a win on this is to optimize your website for long-tail keywords.
5. Videos
Use of video is another online marketing strategy that gained popularity within a short time. The traditional television is now available for users in their smartphones. Video engines such as YouTube, Netflix and Facebook Live are trending now more than ever. In fact, a study conducted by Cisco shows that 82 % of internet traffic shall be via video by the year 2021.
Users are spending more time watching videos and it’s a big reap for advertisers. So why wait longer? Here is why live video is a multi-billion industry:
- It is affordable: Live video is simple; all you need is good internet connection and camera. Traditional editing of videos and related materials is time-consuming and money- milking.
- Its original: Talk of authenticity and your consumers already know that live video exhibits real scenarios, not some doctored and tailored clips.
How to can apply live videos in your marketing strategies?
- Record your industry events as they happen. This is a great opportunity to build trust with your consumers.
- Create more awareness by using live video to demonstrate how to use a product newly launched.
Most people increasingly prefer watching videos than reading through paragraphs as it gives them an easier time to do actual visualization. That being said, it is vital to have videos for some of your written content so that you able to reach larger audiences. YouTube is a great platform to use, going by the fact that it is the largest search engine.
6. Podcasting
Podcasting research conducted by Edison Researchers in 2017 shows that podcast listeners are better buyers. As a marketer, it is crucial that you create a podcast for consumers on the go. A good number of your potential buyers don’t have time to read articles and that fact makes a podcast an online marketing strategy we can’t ignore in 2019.
7. Marketing Funnels
Marketing funnels are one other example of types of online marketing strategies that are going to hold much significance in 2019. To have an effective funnel marketing strategy; you have to religiously track all the important aspects of your business. Additionally, you have to invent ways of making your funnel more relevant and better. This will help you get more visitors to your website and better your conversions.
8. Omnichannel marketing
Customers are looking forward to getting information on a product through several channels. For example, you can introduce your product to people via Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. Your website visitors can talk to you using comments or chat. People subscribed to your email can communicate through the email platform.
You see, multichannel communication was not quite a great step to solving the customer’s woes. Omnichannel, on the other hand, promotes consistent communication between you and your customers across all platforms.
Omnichannel simply helps you track communication of your potential customers irrespective of the channel they chose to follow. This will create a good impression to your prospects that you offer great support.
This marketing strategy will help you retain large numbers of your customers and that’s definitely good for business. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program will help you keep track of all your customer communication on various channels. There are several CRM programs to choose from on the market today.
Final thoughts
Online marketing has come a long way. With these new trends, getting more visitors to your business is not as hard as it used to be. However, there is more to be done in terms of creating user-friendly content for any startup. The best way to stay ahead of the curve this year; is to implement what you can as soon as possible and engage SEO experts in other areas where you need help.
We hope that this blog shed light on which marketing strategies are on the rise. Let us know which ones you will love to try for your business.
Swansea Digital Marketing, 306 Llangyfelach Road, Brynhyfryd, Swansea, SA5 9LG. Tel: 07946 212 620
