Marketing is always changing, and those who stay in touch with coming trends are those who stay ahead.
Marketing trends and tactics change all the time, especially online, so it’s important to stay on top of what’s trendy. It’s also important to stay one step ahead of the curve.
For that very reason, Inc.com have put together the four top trends you need to adopt in 2020.
Forego the funnel
If you’re still working on the funnel model, you need to get with the times.
The funnel approach relies upon a linear process where you attract, then sell, then possibly re-engage. But linearity is simplicity.
Instead, Hubspot have pioneered a Flywheel marketing approach, where you engage with customers on several levels all at once – including past the point of sale. With this approach, you attract, engage and satisfy all at the same time instead of treating customer relationships like a step-by-step process.
Interact with your customers constantly and continuously, not as a one-time occasion to make a singular profit.
Social shopping
Online shopping is no longer the separate entity that it once was. Most online shoppers would shop because they’d gone online exclusively to do so.
Now, social media platforms can take a user from scrolling to shopping in a couple of clicks.
If you want to offer this type of immediacy to your customers, you need to be creating shoppable social media posts.
Personalisation
Gone are the days of sending the same mass email to each and every one of your customers. When a consumer receives a mass-sent email, they typically delete it without engaging at all.
Customers want to relate to the company they’re buying from:
Segment your email lists into categories, and study consumer behaviours to personalise each push. The key is to make customers feel they are being treated as individuals.
If customers feel like they’re being treated in a bespoke way, they’re much more likely to engage – and keep engaging.
Concentrated content
Content marketing is of course still the most important thing in attracting, engaging and retaining an audience. But the market is now so saturated.
Because of this, quality content marketing is now more important than large quantities of content. It’s okay if you don’t have something to post every day. If that’s the case, don’t desperately look for ‘just anything’ to post. Because ‘just anything’ can often be worse than nothing.
It’s essential now to diversify what you’re doing. Videos, quizzes and conversations are all interesting and engaging ways to get involved with your audience.
SEO and blogging are of course still important, but make sure you’re doing them right – don’t just saturate the web with lots of pointless posts:
Content is the coal that makes your marketing strategy roll, but content that is overused, saturated, or posted for the sake of posting will negatively affect engagement.
It’s important to be aware of growing trends, especially ones that might well be big in the future. Marketing is always changing, and those who stay in touch with coming trends are those who stay ahead.