15 Crazy online Marketing Trends Business Owners should know about

As 2018 enters the third quarter, online marketing strategies are witnessing phenomenal changes that businesses can no longer ignore.  

Traditional online marketing tactics are giving way to new trends that are much more advanced and even crazy at times. There were times when most businesses dismissed now-trending ideas like artificial intelligence and visual search. Contrary to their perception, digital marketing industry has made a giant leap by making use of these futuristic tools.  

Now, if you belong to the field of Digital Marketing, the prime key to success greatly depends on how soon you can adopt these trends into your business.  

Well, here are 15 new and crazy online marketing trends that you should implement for your business. 

1. Artificial intelligence

AI or Artificial intelligence has grown to become an integral part of any successful marketing process. Marketers and businesses use AI to analyze the customer behavior, their search patterns, and their interests. AI is also playing an essential role in allowing the businesses to understand how their customers find products and services. Digital marketing agencies have also started using AI bots to engage in natural conversation with their clients. These Chatbots offer tips and information based on the specific requirements of the user. 

According to a study by Gartner, it’s predicted that 85% of the customer interaction will be done through artificial intelligence by 2020. Using AI to predict the behavior of customers and their interests can benefit business in many ways. Businesses can develop strategies using the data gathered from AI to plan a focused campaign on their target audience based on their likes and dislikes. 

2. Leverage smartphones 

Smartphones, in general, have been around for the past few years, but for some crazy reason, many businesses still don’t use them for leveraging in online marketing. Today, more than 70% of the total world population uses mobile phones, and over one third of the world’s total population own a smartphone. This is why it is important for the businesses to move with the tide as it helps them reach the users easily. 

The best way of doing it is by creating a mobile friendly website. You can ask your customers or audience to provide their mobile numbers in the website so that you can send them text messages regarding new launches, offers, and other services that your business has to offer. Today, you can find the search engines adapting to the smartphones and creating algorithms that can rank the websites based on if they are supported in the smartphones or not. This means, if your business website is not supported on mobile phones, there are chances that it will go down in the search engine rankings drastically.  

3. Chatbots

It is believed that chatbots will help in saving around $8 billion per annum by the year 2022. People also love communicating with these chatbots as these virtual assistants answer to their queries accurately, promptly, and quickly. Most precisely, the chatbots never lose patience as normal humans would do, which makes them a favorite among people. In addition to acting as a customer support program, chatbots also ask customers for their email IDs and phone numbers so that you can use them to make a contact in future.  

4.  Programming advertising

Programming advertising refers to using AI to automate the process of buying ads to target a specific audience. This helps in increasing your chances of digital marketing success by reducing the costs of customer acquisition. According to a study by the eMarketer, it is believed that around 85% of the total digital display ads that you will see by the year 2019 in the US, will be programmatic. You can use programming advertising to make sure that your ads reach a larger target audience without any hassles, which increases the chances of getting more leads for the business. 

5.  Videos

Studies suggest that consumers prefer information in video format rather than in text. People watching a video message tend to remember more than 60% of the information even after three days. This is very high considering the fact that retention level after reading is just 10%. Videos are a part of the visual content that helps you tell compelling stories and get your point across faster than any other channel. 

Studies suggest that videos will claim more than 80% of the total internet traffic by the end of 2019. Also, it’s proven that using a video in your marketing emails can help in boosting your click-through rates by 200-300%. Making and posting a video today has become easier ever. You have various platforms, like YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and various others where you can shoot and publish the videos. So, what are you waiting for? Make your business video and share it to get more engagements. 

6.  Personalization

Personalization (personalized content) has increasingly become one of the major aspects of internet marketing, and it is expected to grow even more. Personalization offers an unique experience to your audience based on their preferences and choices.  

Various digital marketing tools make it effortless to collect the user data, like their interests, purchase history, websites visited, and various other things. Based on these data, you can easily customize and create personalized content for your customers.  

Based on their interests, purchase history, online behavior, and demographics, you can create a personalized marketing email that will increase the chances of you getting more engagement.  

7. Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is increasingly becoming one of the most important digital marketing strategies for businesses. This high-returns guarantied strategy uses influencers to drive your brand’s message across a specific niche audience base. Influencer marketing is an effective marketing tool that helps businesses gain better leads and more audience engagement. 

An influencer can be anyone from well-known journalist or bloggers, to well-known celebrities who can help you spread word across to your target audience through various social channels. Since influencer marketing is not like ads or other traditional marketing techniques, they will help you to create a positive image for your business among your potential customers – naturally. This, in turn, brings in more engagement for your business and you get better leads as well.  

8. Voice search

You might not be aware of it, but voice searches are getting more popular among the people. More than 20% of the total mobile searches on Google are made through voice searches. Also, the virtual voice assistants, like Siri, Google, Alexa, and Cortona are getting smarter, and the number of mistakes made by them are drastically dwindling. This is one of the main reasons why more people are using the voice search assistants for their searches. 

Many businesses have now taken a cue from the situation and have included voice search in their online marketing strategies. They aim to provide value-based content through audio to their customers. Also, they have started supporting various virtual voice assistants to make it easier for the users to look for what they want. You can leverage this opportunity by including voice search in your digital marketing strategy.  

9.  Visual search

This is comparatively a new and less common than voice search, but it has the potential to become a major part of online marketing in the future. Visual search refers to a new type of search feature that can take the user experience to a whole new level. All that users need to do is upload a picture to the search engine and get results that are associated with the image uploaded.  

Pinterest is looking like first in the line to introduce a full-fledged visual search for its users. They have developed a tool called Lens that helps the users to take a picture of any item and then find out where it is available online. You also get information about the similar products or the pin boards that are related to the item you search for.  

Google and Microsoft also have their own tools for visual search. Google has a tool called Google Lens – a virtual search engine that can identify objects, landmarks, and other things visually through its camera app. The feature is already available in the Google Pixel phones, and it’s expected to be launched for other devices as well. Microsoft, on the other hand, has its own version of visual search called Bing Visual Search, which allows the users to search for any particular element present inside an image.  

10. Social messaging apps

Social messaging apps are very popular among people all across the globe. Messaging platforms, like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, have been used by the people more than their default messaging apps. This provides a great opportunity for the businesses to leverage these apps to expand their reach in the internet market. It makes sense for the businesses to spend their time and money on these social messaging apps since the number of engagements they get from these apps are higher than email marketing and text marketing.  

You can use these platforms to send custom messages to your customers directly, which will allow you to build a strong personal relationship with them. It also adds value to the overall user experience, as they think they are a part of your business. So, what are you waiting for? Find the most common social messaging app used by your customers and start sending them custom messages for better engagement. 

11.  Social media stories

Try opening any of your social media accounts, and you will see stories of your friends and the people you follow. After being introduced first in Snapchat, the stories have become very popular among the social media users. You can find similar feature in almost all the social media platforms, including Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and even WhatsApp.  

These stories present a great opportunity for the businesses to consider using them in their digital marketing strategies. You can leverage the live video feature to showcase your products or things about your business, which will promote engagement and the brand awareness. It may sound easy form the out, but it’s actually tricky as you need to find the right content that can keep your audience intrigued in checking your stories. Once you find the right content that your audience will love, it can guarantee you more engagement. 

12.  Reviews

No matter how advanced the technologies become, organic traffic that your website gets from SEO is believed to be the best source of engagement for any business. While many factors make up for your search engine ranking, the number of reviews you have for your business is one of the most important factors to determine your search position. Most of the search engines today look for reviews of your business on various platforms, like Facebook, Yelp, and others. Based on how good or bad your reviews are, the search engines decide your rank. 

Reviews are also essential to get you more engagement from the online audience. Before buying any product or opting for any services, people tend to first check for reviews to know the popular sentiment of other users or clients. If your business has good reviews, then there are more chances of you getting more potential customers. This is why it’s recommended that you make a solid strategy for getting good reviews for your business. Remember, the more the number of positive reviews, the more engagement you get from your audience.  

Also read: How Semrush AdClarity can Boost Your Digital Advertising

13.  Micro-Moments

Studies suggest that most people spend more than 4 hours on their smartphones each day checking their social media profiles more than 15 times a day. This has been instrumental in changing businesses toiling to get attention of their potential buyers. Micro-Moments present your business an opportunity to get the attention of your potential customers. It delivers your marketing message to your consumers in a way that could intrigue them. The message is short and crisp that can be read within seconds. 

Micro-moments aim to provide accurate information to the consumers whenever they need it. This helps your customers to take instant decisions that can bring engagement for your business. Micro-moments have become vital for online marketers, and it is crucial for the businesses to address it and offer targeted advertising to their potential customers. 

14.  Native Ads 

Native ads are expected to influence more than 75% of all the ad revenues by the year 2021. These ads have a more natural format and placement that tends to get them more exposure and engagement from the customers. They are far more effective and are less annoying than the traditional banner ads that most of the businesses use today. You can try using these native ads in your online marketing strategy to make sure that you get more engagement. 

15.  Apps

Today, you will find apps for everything, starting with locating where you are to buying things online, you are surrounded by apps. People owning smartphones rely on apps heavily for different tasks. This provides the businesses a great opportunity to find the customer engagement from through apps. Most of the apps support and run ads, which can be used to gain more engagement from the people. However, you need to make sure that your ads run on apps that are relevant to the niche or the industry you cater to. This improves your chances of getting more customer engagement. 

Insights 

These are some of the new and crazy online marketing trends that can leverage the reach of your business to the potential customers. The future of online marketing seems to provide new opportunities for the businesses and brands to interact and engage with their potential customers in a whole new way. With customer experience becoming the most important factor in getting engagement, it’s up to you how you use these trends to achieve online marketing success.  

Also read: The Impact of Videos on Digital Marketing

About Author: Jafar Sadhik 

A passionate logophile turned creative content specialist pursuing a dream in ever inflating digital market. Currently employed as a technical blogger at Stan Ventures, a digital marketing SEO reseller venture.