In today’s marketing landscape, technology-based advertising changes fast, and consumer behaviors and interests have become hard to predict. To succeed, digital marketers and those who work in digital PR cannot rely on educated guesses anymore. They’ll have to stay abreast with marketing trends or face challenges associated with Digital Darwinism.
Given the rapid changes in the marketing space, let’s review several trends that’ll help brands gain a competitive advantage in 2021.
#1. Chatbots
In 2021, Chatbots will continue to be an important cog in digital marketing. Leveraging artificial intelligence, the technology enables marketers to adopt instant messaging via chat. Once set up, brands reap benefits from chat bots like their 24/7 availability and the ability to communicate with website visitors or customers.
Recent surveys showed that: top benefits drawn from chatbots include instant responses to inquiries, a 24/7 service, and high-quality responses to simple questions. As well, recent studies have shown that AI will power close to 95% of all customer interactions by the year 2025.
Today, many customers prefer chatbot-based communication thanks to their responsiveness, prompt answers, and storage of accurate purchase histories. For digital marketers, these virtual assistants simplify operations by automating repetitive tasks while offering outstanding customer service.
#2. Conversational marketing
With the increased adoption of chatbots, conversational marketing becomes a reality in the modern marketing landscape. Today, approximately 82% of the consumers prefer immediate responses to queries, and they enjoy them in a conversational tone. What’s more, conversational marketing is seen to facilitate real-time and personalized interaction between customers and marketers.
Being available across multiple channels, unlike conventional strategies, conversational marketing enables brands to meet customers on their preferred platforms, devices, and schedules.
By employing conversational marketing, brands will enhance user experience through a feed-back driven setup, thereby encouraging brand loyalty and increasing user engagement.
#3. Personalization
To stand out in 2021, brands will need to employ personalized approaches to their marketing. That’s to be achieved through personalized products, emails, and other forms of content.
Findings by an Epsilon survey of 1000 customers in the 18-64 age bracket showed that: more than 80% of customers are likely to buy from a business that personalizes its offering. And, 90 percent of the consumers claimed that they found personalized messages and content to be more appealing.
Here’s one company that have used personalization to achieve great results in the recent past:
Starbucks employs a gamified mobile app to personalize its products. Employing data like location and purchase history, the gamified app allows each consumer to customize their drink and use the brand’s reward system. With the app-based personalization and reward system, Starbucks’ revenue skyrocketed to $2.56 billion. At the same time, the gamified mobile app generated more than $6 million in monthly sales—that’s close to 22% of all U.S. sales.
