Do you own a small business or a startup? Are you a marketeer or a social media specialist who’s struggling with keeping up with the upcoming marketing trends? The only way for your business to shine in the competitive marketing realm, is by identifying new opportunities before the big players jump in. This is defined by your ability to spot those rising opportunities or as we now call it “Growth Hacking”.
In the following article, we will try to explore the upcoming marketing trends that you should keep a close eye on this year.
First marketing trend: The rise of new social media platforms
Social media is becoming a core essence of our modern life and as the networks keep growing, new ones emerge. Users will always try creating their own spaces on social media platforms which makes the analysis and understanding of their behavior harder for businesses. Once they get used to one platform and the tools are developed to give brands a clear picture and deep understanding of user’s behavior, new platforms emerge creating a blind spot for brands.
In 2020, more and more of those blind spots are going to rise. Brands who refused to invest in digital marketing and are now trying to catch up, are going to suffer from technical debt. In order to stay ahead of the game, here are some of the things your marketing team should pay attention to and try to find ways to create successful campaigns on.
TikTok:
TikTok was the rising star in the social media realm in 2019 and it will continue in 2020. It’s available in 155 countries, with 500 million active users spending an average of 52 minutes per day on the app. You can check more astonishing stats about the app here.
TikTok for brands can be very challenging but it also represents a great opportunity for companies through its ads. Even though the beta version was released in 2019, the best feature of TikTok is that users are not yet familiar with ads on the platform providing more opportunity for them to not skip a brands message giving brands more room to be creative with their content.
The platform welcomes organic content, providing brands with an opportunity to start brainstorming and experimenting strategies to build a strong audience there. Unlike other platforms, where PPC/SEO technical expertise plays a major role to make a campaign work, with this platform creative led campaigns will be key to the success of the campaigns.
Telegram:
The messaging app with a strong commitment to privacy, has 200 million active users now. Telegram is also growing for group communication with features like creating public chat groups and the possibility to automate and connect your chats.
In 2020, Telegram will be a great opportunity for brands to create their own channel and develop it to be a marketing and a communication channel with current users. A platform to enhance their retention strategies, this could be great for retail, eCommerce and others who would benefit from a channel that allows them a constant real time medium to deliver messages to their customers.
WhatsApp:
The messaging app that has a string, rising consumer base each day. WhatsApp recently introduced WhatsApp Business allowing more features available for brands to explore and communicate with a diverse audience network.
So, how can you use WhatsApp for your business?
- Add it as a communication channel: Just like you list your phone number on your business cards, website, and others. Now is the time to start thinking of adding WhatsApp there. Allow users to connect with your brand using WhatsApp.
- Take advantage of groups: Be creative about it, slice and dice your current customers, define segments and messaging and start testing.
- Be creative: Use multimedia, GIF, and Emoji. Don’t be a stranger!
- Use the broadcast feature
- Connect your offline data that you collect and activate them using WhatsApp (for free).
- Use WhatsApp stories and status: Don’t forget to have a good profile photo that your creative team created for WhatsApp and avoid to just upload your logo regardless of considering the correct guidelines.
- Join groups: Small brands and startups can look for the most active groups that has their target customers and join them, and when you join make sure you join the conversation. But beware of spamming them with your offers.
- Use it for real-time customer service.
Second marketing trend: Abandoned mediums
As brands start abandoning mediums to join the trending new ones, it’s your opportunity to get the best deals without much noise from the competition; great opportunities are offered every day for brands and marketers.
You’ll only notice these opportunities, when you dig deep into the market dynamics. As the abandoned mediums will be more cost efficient, your marketing team should always be on the lookout for them as an opportunity to add them to your marketing mix to optimize your budget.
I will try to explain this through some examples, but you should look for the relevant opportunities in your market:
- SMS: While Facebook message, AI, push notifications are on the rise, SMS is still a great way to deliver your message directly to the inbox of your users. One can identify this by simply checking how many SMSs that contains commercial ads exist on your phone compared to your Facebook feed. SMS with a bit of work with your tech team can be automated and very complex campaigns can be built to develop current leads, retain current customers and reactivate inactive users.
- Radio and Podcasts: With an increase in demand in podcast listeners, choosing the best podcast to advertise can be a great tactic for your brand. Even though, the competition is minimum when compared to Facebook or google, advertising on the local radio where you target your audience geographically is also a great strategy to explore in 2020.
- Local printed publications: A rise in the number of readers moving to online platforms local newspapers and magazines are suffering. However, these are still delivered to your geo targeted segment. With sufficient audience and a reduction in pricing, it can prove to be a great marketing tool, and great results await you.
- Direct mail: A type of direct marketing that’s delivered physically to a prospect’s mailbox through delivery services. Postcards, flyers, and catalogs are common examples. Email marketing is the digital equivalent. It is a great way to create a physical presence within your customer environment.
Those are just four examples but if you look you will find greater and better opportunities within your market.
Third marketing trend: Micro influencers
Micro influencers are the ones with 1K to 20K followers, they are more engaged with their followers, they are still starting, and they can be a golden opportunity to represent your brand and become some sort of brand ambassadors too.
They will be more flexible and affordable, include them in your digital media marketing mix, and you can optimize and maximize the ROI of your display and social media advertising budget.
My tip for you would be to work with not just one, but a group of micro influencers. You can also check the following guide on Arab social media influencers.
Fourth trend: Focus on what the customer cares about
Customers today are not just fooled by great packaging and branding. They are becoming more aware and they do their own research before adopting a purchase pattern. Healthy and environmentally friendly products are becoming key factors for purchasing. Even with tech products this is still a major factor to differentiate between brands.
When designing your brand, product, and the content pay great attention to be a brand that’s socially aware and supportive or when it comes to related topics.
We’ve covered some of the top marketing trends that you can adopt this year. So start planning your strategy and exploring new ways to reach your audience.
