2020 Digital Marketing Trends & Challenges
Digital marketing is always evolving its ways in consumer behaviour, as well as new technology, and, of course, new platform integrations. With 2020 in full swing, it’s time we check out what is on the horizon for the digital marketing industry and explore some of the challenges companies might be facing in the upcoming future.
- Engaging Advertising Through Storytelling
Storytelling isn’t a new concept, but consumers are far more open to being sold something if the ad tells a story and makes them feel a certain emotion. Take Buzzfeed’s Puppyhood video, for example.
Although it was published in 2015, the strategy of the power of storytelling already has a strong on-trend focus. While people were aware it was an ad for a dog food brand, they were happy to watch the video since telling the story remained a priority.
2020 challenge: Sell with creativity
- Short And Sweet Video Content
Vine paved the way for TikTok’s success. But TikTok managed to do something Vine couldn’t – monetise its content. While YouTube may prefer long form to short-form videos, platforms like TikTok will remain focused on short and snappy videos to get people’s attention.
TikTok remains one of the best ways to target a younger demographic. With over 500 million monthly active users, it remains high on the ‘most-used social media platform’ list.
2020 challenge: Make sure your social strategy includes Tik Tok
- Long Form Copywriting Beats Short-Form Copywriting on Instagram
The Instagram algorithm has been preferring long-form, personal copy over short copy trends. With a character limit of 2,200, it offers brands plenty of storytelling strategies and a personal approach in order to connect with their audience.
This is a perfect opportunity for brands to work on their tone of voice and give their company more personality and connections with customers.
2020 challenge: Give the brand a unique tone of voice
- Further Rise of Influencer Marketing
Nano influencers will be on the rise thanks to their increased engagement and competitive rates. The companies’ biggest challenge will be to measure influencer ROI and learn how to best analyse the metrics in order to create better strategies.
Macro influencers will be forced to create smaller, niche-specific accounts in order to prove their organic engagement and compatibility with the brand’s vision and mission.
Furthermore, brands will need to take a close look at influencer’s online reputation and its match with their own ethics. The digital media world saw an influx of influencer scandals and with that came the rise of brands dropping them from their campaigns and work contracts.
2020 challenge: Look into nano-influencer marketing strategies and metrics
- Personality of the Brands
Tone of voice, personality, and brand ethics will remain a crucial focus for growth and audience engagement in 2020.
As more brands compete with sustainability and customer transparency ethics, many companies will experience the challenge of growth hacking without losing ethical points of view.
2020 challenge: Ethical growth hacking
- PPC Automation
PPC automation has already been the buzzword of the last few years and will continue to do so in 2020. Effective use of PPC tools will take priority and separate professionals from beginners.
Using workflow scripts has become the norm, especially for big, top-performing accounts. However, companies will still require skilled account managers to quickly identify the automation’s strengths and weaknesses and use that to their advantage.
2020 challenge: Stay on top with PPC training
- Authentic Communication and Targeting
How and why you target your customers will be a priority in 2020. Up-and-coming brands absolutely need to create specific customer journey touchpoints through which they guide their audience until the very final conversion.
These need to be strategically planned, however, they shouldn’t be forced. The keyword of 2020 is to do it as authentically as possible – with the real purpose of helping somebody rather than just making a sale and letting them go.
2020 challenge: Create customer journey touchpoints
- Shopping Flows Improved on Instagram and Pinterest
Since Instagram and Pinterest both heavily focus on imagery, the platforms will take advantage of that to create a user journey that will enable them to shop directly through the platform itself.
At the moment, you can browse products on an Instagram page, but you need to go to their official website to purchase it. Using the right tools, both social media platforms should level up their shopping experience and offer an in-app purchasing service in 2020.
2020 challenge: Sell on Instagram and Pinterest
- Further Development of BERT Google Update
In 2019, Google revealed a major SEO algorithm update called BERT, which is focused on better-identifying search results, especially for longer queries. User’s search journey will be better defined and catered to each individual query, taking into consideration stop words and other elements that SEO experts previously ignored.
Quality content will take priority over keyword-stuffing and top pages may show completely different results in the upcoming months.
2020 challenge: Get familiar with Google’s BERT algorithm
- Native Display Advertising
Advertising that doesn’t really look like advertising will be one of the main priorities in 2020. When you scroll through your Facebook or Instagram feed, are you even that bothered about the ads that you see? Consumers have embraced native display advertising as a part of the modern social media experience – now, companies need to think about how to best get their attention through these ads.
While banner ads will continue to help the business, advertising outside of the box to create a non-disruptive user experience will be the main focus of digital marketing strategies.
2020 challenge: Create a native display advertising strategy
- In summary
With that in mind, digital marketing is often full of never-ending surprises. Algorithms change, technology develops, and tools integrate at a rapid pace. It’s extremely important that companies stay updated on every possible trend in the industry and adapt their strategy as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Looking to outsource your work to an agency? Get in touch – let’s explore how we can work together to overcome digital marketing challenges in the upcoming years.
