Trend 1 – Voice Search the future of SEO
People are likely to use voice based search on their mobile phones and less of search through typing.
When driving people will start using more of voice queries on Google. Say for example when you are driving a car, you need to know the nearest salon for a quick shave or an haircut. You may not feel like stopping the car and enquire or type. With the introduction of voice search, people tend to ask something like, “show me the best salons near me”. Google or any search engine will search for the keywords “show me the best salons near me” and show you the top results.
When you are working on keywords for voice based search, you should look out for question phrases like the above one. You should also put yourself in place of a customer and imagine how you will search for a particular service while driving. By doing so, you will be able to arrive at the keywords relevant for voice search. As mentioned earlier, most of the searches will turn as voice search in future, so build your seo strategy around that for better resuts.
Trend 2 – Google Maps Advertising
Google maps can play a major role in influencing customer’s location based search. Say for example, you are using Google maps for going to a restaurant named “Maharaja South Indian Restaurant”. Google maps while navigating you with the route can show some offers in other South Indian Restaurants in the given route.
By showing those offers, Google maps can influence the customers with the buying decision. Currently, Google maps does not have a feature like this. But I am sure it may come out with something like this in near future. As a digital marketer, you should be able use this advertising opportunity to get better results.
Trend 3 – Social media apps
Social Media is playing a major role in digital marketing. It actually influences people and also helps in building a brand. Major advantage of being in the social media is it has a wider reach and also cost effective. In some cases, even smaller companies can create viral content. So companies need to present in the social media with some meaningful content to create the brand presence.
Another trend in the social media that we can witness is that more and more new social media apps will come. Companies need to be aware of the latest things coming up. Each app can have a new concept of connecting with people or it can be an extension of what we already have They should understand the app well and try to find out whether their business can fit in it and plan a strategy accordingly.
Trend 4 – Influencer marketing
Influencer Marketing has been there for so many years in marketing. Earlier it used to be the celebrities like film personalities, sports persons and so on. Celebrities can play one part of it. Another major trend will be reviews and feedback from real customers on their experience on a product or service.
The latest trend could be the customers doing the influencer role. As more and more sales are happening in the internet, people have no option of feeling a product or service before purchasing it. That is when, the buyer checks with people who have already purchased or checks the reviews for the product or service.
Customer reviews plays a great role in the buying cycle of an online sale. So companies need to keep a track of the reviews about the product or service. If there is a negative review they should try to connect to the customer and solve the issue and change the review.
If companies ignore negative reviews, buyers will start ignoring the company. It’s as simple as it is. Apart from that, companies should have a strategy to get reviews from their customers automatically. By doing so, companies will automatically deliver better product or service. More positive reviews will bring in more customers resulting in more revenue.
Trend 5 – Video marketing
When it comes to SEO, Google has been regularly working on various algorithms to ensure that person searching gets the most relevant results. But digital marketers always finds a way to break it and influence the search results as they want. In one of the ways to reduce this influence, Google or other search engines started giving more importance to videos.
By doing so they were able to reduce the spamming people. Search engines also checks the video for the relevance of the topic and their views engagement quotient. So even though people can make their own videos, people will watch it only if the content is relevant and engaging. As a marketer you should be able to produce quality video content and market it to make it viral
Another important online tool to attract customers is through video marketing. Video marketing can be a combination of customer testimonials, product demos, case studies and advertorials. By marketing these videos on the internet you will be able to reach your target segment. Another important aspect is these videos influence the customer in the buying process.
Trend 6 – Visual search
Visual search may become one of the key tool in market places like amazon, flipkart etc. Let us see how it works in details. You suddenly see a handbag which is looking good. You want to buy something similar to that. All you have to do is click the picture with your mobile phone and upload it in visual search.
The search engine will try getting you similar handbags that are sold on the internet. Since it is a very new way of searching things, it is lot more easier for companies to take advantage of it. Companies should put as many pictures as possible of their products in order to utilise this feature to the maximum. Each product should have a 360 degree view, so that it is easily discoverable by search engine. So far this feature is available only in few market places. Soon we can experience it in regular search engines also.
Once the Visual search feature comes in regular search engine like Google, there is a greater possibility that it will be monetized by Google. Let us take the same scenario as mentioned above. A customer uploads a picture of a handbag in the visual search in Google. Google can bring in similar kind of handbags through organic search. It can also show the brands that have advertised with them in that search with prices and offer. So there is an higher chance of conversion for the advertised product. As marketers we need to make use of the opportunity and create conversions for the brand.
Trend 7 – Chatbots
Chatbots are there for long and was under utilized. But now with the popularity of Siri, Google assistant and Alexa people feel cool to use it in their daily life. Companies should either use chatbots in Facebook or use it in their company’s website and mobile app. In order to develop a chatbot, companies should have done a thorough research on what kind of queries they get from customers and create a set of solutions for it. It doesn’t stop there. They should keep on working on new queries and update the chatbot with the same. Chatbots are like SEO, it is a continuous process. If you stop your results will also stop.
In marketing, chatbots can be utilized to send offers, wishes, send thank you notes and so on. Since it is pre programmed customer gets this messages on time. Another aspect which is very useful is it can handle any number of customers. So companies should try making the best use of chatbots and increase their revenues.
Apart from the above, there may be lot more like artificial intelligence, analytics etc can play a part in digital marketing. If you feel some more trends that could come up in digital marketing, do add it in your comment. I will be happy to research those areas and add it in this article. Happy reading ! You can also download our Free book on Marketing here
