In this final post of our 2022 marketing and advertising trends series, we round up 3 of the biggest upcoming trends for 2022.

We chose these three because they are not easily palatable like social media or paid ads. Many marketers are still trying to wrap their heads around these terms. 

Understanding what they are and where they are heading can give you an edge against your competitors.

See also our previous posts in this series:

• 8 out 10 (Muslim) Consumers Prefer Live Stream Video Over Reading Your Blog
• The #1 Video Advertising Trend for Epic Muslim Consumer Engagement in 2022

So let’s jump right in:

1- Customer Data Platforms (CDP)

The easiest definition of a CDP is:

…a software package that creates a centralized hub for (mostly first-party) customer data. It pools data from multiple sources into a single, unified customer database.

Source: Oktopost

CDPs are growing in popularity for marketers because of their ability to “unify customer data silos into a single customer view, and deliver transformational, one-to-one, omnichannel experiences through one platform”.

Source: Martech Intelligence Report

Marketers are not dependent on IT or development teams to run CDPs. This gives marketers full control over granular customer data capture, segmentation, and campaign orchestration.

CDPs are Neither CRMs Nor DMPs

This might start to become confusing so let’s demonstrate what each one is and isn’t.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems, customer data platforms (CDPs), and data management platforms (DMPs) all gather customer data from various sources effectively. They are similar in how they collect and store data, but there’s more.

Here’s a head-to-head comparison between the three:

Muslim businesses and organizations should seriously contemplate how they can benefit from their own first-party data with the impending death of the cookie. Understanding how CDPs function is becoming more important day by day.

2- Privacy

The impending death of the cookie which has been delayed until 2023 is a product of many years of users being skeptical about online privacy.

Today, more than ever, consumers are worried about their digital privacy. This is why we see browsers and mobile operating systems distancing themselves from individual-level identifiers. 

These technologies are shifting towards privacy preservation methods like aggregation and on-device processing for advertising.

Advice from Google

Here is what Google advises marketers to do on their Think with Google privacy guide:

• Start using first-party data like customer purchase history more. It is accurate and privacy-safe.
• Measure your first-party data accurately through proper tagging to have a representative view of performance across channels.
• Activate your data with automation and pair your first-party data with other signals for the most accurate insights possible.

Getting privacy right in 2022 and beyond will be massively important. Muslim brands that can achieve excellence in protecting their user’s privacy will thrive. Those that don’t will take a nosedive.

Salesforce reports that 48% of consumers worldwide stopped buying or using a service from companies due to privacy concerns.

3- Metaverse 

Metaverse is a virtual-reality world where users are able to interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.

Metaverse will advance even further in 2022. For instance:

• Meta (formerly known as Facebook) has a new higher-end headset coming out codenamed Project Cambria which mixes virtual elements with the real world. 
• Apple is expected to introduce its first augmented and virtual reality headset.
• StartUps 8i and 8th Wall developed live hologram video calls. The technology known as volumetric video can be accessed on any web browser, computer, or phone.

Virtual Products

The more technology there is for AR and VR, the more we are going to see mainstream brands sell more virtual products and advertising even more in these virtual spaces.

Speaking of virtual products:

“Today there is a veritable gold rush in the metaverse, with young people and celebrities like Snoop Dogg investing millions of dollars in virtual real estate. Fortune magazine called it a “multi-trillion-dollar opportunity.” It’s conceivable that a new generation will purchase their first house (or a unique share of it) in the metaverse.”

Source: CoinBase

We took a more detailed look at metaverse for halal and Muslim-friendly brands in a previous article. We advise you to take a look.

Conclusion

User privacy is a big issue today. Understanding how to get the best out of your first-party data is vital for success and maybe even survival.

Technology, on the other hand, is getting more advanced and the metaverse will bring in more opportunities for brands and advertisers.

The online world is changing and MAN has strived all year to keep you updated.

Join our online newsletter so you do not miss out on the latest trends and hot tips for targeting Muslim consumers.

Have a blessed new year!

The post 3 Top Marketing Trends for 2022 For Muslim Marketers and Islamic Organizations appeared first on Muslim Ad Network.

Do you have an online marketing mix for your Muslim Audience? If you do, congratulations, you have the fundamentals of a successful halal business in place. If you don’t, it’s OK. Stick around and let me help you create one.

Your online marketing mix for your Muslim business will help you shape every element of your marketing process. This in turn will enable you to run a stronger, highly functioning, and profitable halal business online.

Remember that every business model has different requirements. Your Muslim business model may be one that benefits completely from a purely online approach or may need a combination of online and offline tactics.

This article will give you insight on how to build a Muslim business marketing model solely through online methods. With a little fine-tuning, you will be able to utilize and implement it for your halal business. This should be the case even if your halal business is not entirely based online.

First, I will briefly explain the traditional marketing mix – which is built on the 7 P’s. Then, I will take you through each of the 7 P’s individually through the lens of online marketing.

The Traditional Marketing Mix for Your Muslim Business

The Evolution of the 7 P’s

The marketing mix has come a long way since 1960 when McCarthy coined the term in his book, Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach. Back then it consisted of four marketing components (a.k.a 4 P’s).:

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

Over the years, the marketing mix has grown to include more elements. In 1981,Booms and Bartner added four more elements to the marketing mix:

• People
• Process
• Performance
• Physical Evidence

I know what you are thinking; that’s 8 right? Well, ‘performance’ ended up being used as a subcategory of the ‘process’ component.

The Introduction of the 6 C’s

No, don’t worry we are not going to go through the entire English alphabet. This is the last bit I promise you.

With the markets becoming more customer-centric, customer-driven marketing components were added to the marketing mix by Lauterborn and again by Shimizu. A combined list looks as below:

• Consumer
• Cost
• Convenience
• Communication 
• Commodity
• Channel

So for your business that targets Muslims, you would use the marketing mix framework for making effective marketing and business decisions. 

A marketing mix is also a tool for developing business strength and minimizing weaknesses. It improves flexibility, innovation, and competitiveness in the marketplace.

The 6 C’s have been incorporated into the 7 P’s and a simplified model of the online marketing mix may look like this depending on the type of halal business you run:

Implementing the Online Marketing Mix for Your Halal Business.

Now, the fun part begins. Let me show you how you would implement the online marketing mix for your halal business. I will discuss all the 7 P’s through the lens of online marketing.  

For this, I have chosen a fictional halal business – Mahabba.com – to make it more palatable for you. 

Product

Matrimonial Service

Mahabba.com is a Muslim matrimonial website for Muslim singles looking to get married. Its services are 100% online. There is no physical presence and all match-making and consultation are made virtually. These services are available for premium members only.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Mahabba.com has extended its services with virtual ‘nikaah’ (signing of the marriage contract).

In 2020, Mahabba.com started offering pre-marriage consultation and coaching on the rights of husband and wife. Because the vision of Mahabba.com is to bring back family values to strengthen the Muslim nation, they will also offer marriage therapy, financial training, and parenting coaching.

The owners – Ayman and Nabila-  believe that since the creation, management, pricing, and the actual distribution of Mahabba.com’s services happen online that their business model is genuinely scalable online.

Creating or Improving Your Online Halal Product or Service

You might be creating a halal online product or service from scratch, taking over an existing entity, or trying to improve what you offer. Within an online marketing mix, you must take into consideration all the aspects that surround the product or service itself. 

Think about the questions that potentially help you deliver a better halal online product or service. This list is not exhaustive but a good place to start strongly:

• What’s the branding around my product or service going to look like?
• Shall I offer a product line or a set of products in a range/mix?
• What extra services do I need to implement around the product?
• What does the end cycle of my halal online product or service look like? For example, is it upgradeable, or is it update-based?
• What guarantees should I offer for my halal online product?

Think of:

• Design
• Quality
• Features
• Options
• Packaging
• Market positioning

If you can answer all the questions above, you will be on your way to producing a high-quality online product or service or even to modify your current Muslim business model.

Online Halal Product or Service Ideas

You will use the product section of the marketing mix when exploring new ideas for your halal business or even improving your current product or service offer. There are several choices you can explore.

Muslims today have become more inclined towards products and services that fit their values. You can read about it in the article: 6 Reasons Why Businesses Targeting Muslims Will Thrive in 2020 and Beyond.

One way of innovating new halal business models is by redefining existing physical products into the digital space. 

So the best place to start would be looking at the basic products and services that everyone can’t do without and see if there is enough demand for a halal version. If you end up with a product that is not typically deliverable online, you will need to come up with a digitalization plan for your halal business idea.

Here is why Muslim businesses and organizations must adapt to Digital Transformation.

Digitalization of your product and services will enable them to some extent be an entirely online experience for your customers. In the example of our fictional company, Mahabba.com, they offer online consulting services. 

Price

Upgradable Subscription

Price in an online marketing mix refers to the cost of a product your customer will pay.

In our example, when calculating the price, Ayman and Nabila need to take into consideration secondary factors such as the customer’s perceived value of an online product/service. They also need to consider how much time it takes for a customer with a free account  to upgrade in order to get the services mentioned earlier.

By considering the time spent on acquiring their services in the pricing strategy helps Ayman and Nabila develop more accurate pricing for their services. Additionally, developing an understanding of each of their customer touchpoints can help them design better user and better customer experiences.

A typical customer – Junaid – for Mahabba.com might have the following customer journey:

• Awareness that settling down should be a priority, most of his friends are already married
• Finding it difficult to meet someone from work and does not like family referrals
• Researches several Muslim matrimonial websites
• Decides most of them have too many fake accounts and “time-wasters”
• Registers for a free account at Mahabba.com
• For months, maybe even years scours the site when he has free time
• Goes for months without visiting Mahabba.com then gets triggered to come back
• Mahabba.com nurtures him and keeps giving him incentives to come back
• When the time is right he finally finds someone he is willing to talk to seriously
• He now upgrades to premium in order to be able to talk to her

The above is the dream scenario and yet it takes quite a long time to reach. Many of those who have free accounts end up leaving and not coming back. Due to the long process, the cost of acquisition is quite high and the loss of sales is something that happens frequently.

Pricing their online service inefficiently will result in their business closing.

Pricing Models to Consider for Your Halal Business

The owners of Mahabba.com use the subscription pricing model as this is the most common model for the industry they are in. Depending on your industry, there are three typical pricing models that you can choose from for your halal business online.

The Software as a Service Model (SaaS)

In this subscription model, you will grant subscribers access to your online product or service. A subscription model for your online halal business is beneficial if your product is not static. Meaning it has updates, levels of complexity of using it, or its upgradeability (as in the case of Mahabba.com).

The Free Model

With the free model, you may offer your product for free and monetize through other means. The most common monetizing strategy for this model is advertising. This is when publishers or app creators sell space online to advertisers to advertise on their platform.

The Single Purchase Model 

This is a one-price-for-one-product model, where your customer engages in a one-time purchase. This will suit you if you sell finished products. However, you need to incorporate customer support, onboarding, or anything else you may need to do post-sales activity into your price.

Promotion

Display Ads and Social Media

Promotion in the online marketing mix is the use of online marketing communication tools to target your audiences with content that ultimately leads to the desired business goal.

Mahabba.com uses a combination of display ads and social media marketing, both paid and owned (organic). Since finding your soulmate is an emotional issue, Ayman and Nabila believe that using the right visuals can trigger singles to visit their website.

They also know that social media platforms are rich with people who see others being happy in their lives. This makes it a good place to offer happiness through marriage for those looking for happiness and love in a halal manner.

Depending on your business goals, promotion may mean the use of online advertising, public relations, direct communication, and sales promotions to reach and influence your Muslim audience.

Choosing Promotional Strategies for Your Halal Business

The internet offers a plethora of effective strategies to include in your online marketing mix. The nature of your Muslim business and its online products or services will determine what strategy to implement.

For example, you may decide to advertise directly, build authority with content, or create a community on social media. Or you can do a combination of all of them.

Keep in mind that you can’t invest in every channel out there, just because it exists. This is why you need to understand who your audience is and where to find them. You also need to make sure that your promotional plans are realistic.

For example, investing in website content to boost your organic rank on Google takes time. When your business requires revenue today, this strategy should be replaced or supplemented by paid ads.

Here are a few examples of what you can use to promote your Muslim business online:

• Search Engine Marketing (Google, Bing)
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Content Marketing
• Online PR
• Social media – Owned
• Social Media – Paid
• Video Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Affiliate Marketing

One of the biggest benefits of promoting your product or service online (online marketing) is the ability to track the results in real-time with the use of web analytics. Web analytics for your online marketing allows you to constantly optimize your efforts.

Resources for Your Online Promotion

Here is a powerful list of articles that will help you navigate your way through the world of marketing to Muslims online. You will learn both technical and cultural aspects of marketing to your Muslim audience effectively.

The Muslim Consumer

• 6 Reasons Why Businesses Targeting Muslims Will Thrive in 2020 and Beyond
• 3 Tips for Marketing to Muslims and Not Get The Cold Shoulder
• 3 Ways of Cutting Through the Noise to Reach Muslim Consumers
• 7 Hard Truths You Will Face When Targeting Muslim Audiences
• The One Reason Every Brand is Failing to Capitalize on the Muslim Consumer Market Effectively

Advertising to Muslims Online

• 7 Simple But Extremely Effective Display Ad Ideas
• 50% More Sales Via Your Display Ads? Do This
• 3 Quick Tips for Effectively Designing Banner Ads that Spark Engagement
• 7 Quick Fixes to Your Landing Page for Converting Your Display Ad Campaign
• How to Not Mess Up Your Ad Placements
• How to Run a Successful Digital Marketing Campaign to Muslim Consumers

Social Media Marketing for Muslims

• TikTok Introduces Marketing Partner Program For Advertisers – Is it Suitable for Muslim Businesses?
• How to Leverage Muslim Consumer Behavior Online with Social Media Marketing
• Want to Know if Your Social Media Marketing for Muslim Audiences Works? Here’s How!

Islamic Advertising Principles and Ethics

• What You Must Know About Islamic Advertising Principles
• The World of Advertising and the Consequences of Racist Ads

Content Marketing for Muslim Consumers

• How to Write Content That Your Audience Cannot Ignore

Place

Website and Live Video Platforms

Place in the online marketing mix defines the place where and how you provide your products and services to your Muslim customers.

Mahabba.com has a matrimonial website where Muslim users can register and look for a spouse. They also have a contract with Zoom and use it for virtual ‘nikaah’ ( signing of the marriage contract), pre-marriage consultation, marriage therapy, and parenting coaching.

When discussing place in the online marketing mix it’s important to consider the convenience factors for your Muslim customers. Enabling the most convenient place for them to access your online products and services is crucial for the overall experience.

Apart from the main place where you provide your product and services, Muslim users may guide you to other places. You may have to sell them your products where they hang out too. Facebook Shop is a good example of a place you can set up where your users hang out.

People

Good people make great brands. No matter how good your product is, your business requires people to help run it. The quality of the people involved is important both internally and in customer-facing functions.

In the Mahabba.com example, the proper people would be involved in the different services being offered. Based on the service they offer they would need:

• Front-end and back-end web experts
• Designers and software developers
• Business Managers
• Marketeers
• Marriage counselors
• Experts in Islamic Jurisprudence ( specializing in marriage and divorce)
• Legal team
• Customer service

All of the above people represent the values of our fictional example, Mahabba.com’s brand.

Emphasis on Customer Support

There are many options and combinations of online customer support you can introduce into your business workflow. You can, for example, integrate social media as a channel for customer support. This of course, in combination with email, chat, or phone.

Customer support is vital in an online setting when interactions are not physical. A well-engineered customer support system provides customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. 

But it also provides data that you may use to improve your business process, customer experience, product, service, and targeting.

Process

The process in the online marketing mix defines the needed procedures and optimization of delivering online products and the core experiences of it. You have to ask yourself what tasks are necessary for your product or service to provide its core experience to your Muslim customers.

When it comes to the marketing mix, the process is a component of service that sees the Muslim user experiencing your offering. You may say it is something that your customer participates in at different points in time. 

In our example, Mahabba.com’s Muslim singles will experience their offering from the time they visit their website all the way to tying the knot and maybe even further.

At each stage of the process, your business is looking to:

• Deliver value and enhance services
• Use feedback to optimize the process
• Use the process to retain customers and upsell
• Tailor the process to the needs of different individuals

The better the process you have in place, the easier it will be for your business to grow. Documenting every step you take, will help you gauge the health of your business from an online marketing perspective. It will also help you find critical errors early on before they lead to significant failures.

Physical Evidence (Online Evidence)

Physical evidence in an online marketing mix refers to the virtual environment experienced by your Muslim customers. This includes multiple channels such as social media platforms and forums with your website being the most important of all the channels.

Mahaaba.com creates online brand awareness across multiple channels using online evidence. These channels help them expand service experiences for Muslim singles.

Your design and layout are important and should make the user experience simple and straightforward. If Muslim consumers struggle to find what they want from you, they will move to your competitors.

Your online evidence should also match how you want your business to be perceived by your customers and potential customers.

With the website being the most important online evidence make sure that:

• Your website is easy to navigate
• Products and services you offer are clearly displayed with key information
• Muslim users can find key information about your company
• Keep customer service at the forefront of your website (Chatbots are a good example)
• Your customers should be able to contact your organization easily
• The design should use colors, text, and images that reflect your organization’s personality

Conclusion

When you decide to work with a complete online marketing mix, you will be able to develop a better online marketing strategy for Muslim consumers. In short, your organization will enjoy the following benefits:

• Have a valuable guide for resource allocation
• A well-defined responsibility allocation process
• Develop the ability to optimize your marketing efforts
• Be able to facilitate your communication process

It is vital to form the right partnerships for each of the 7 P’s if you do not possess the skills or don’t have the time to execute them properly.

You can contact Muslim Ad Network for your advertising, the main component of ‘Promotion’ for most organizations.

The post What’s Your Online Marketing Mix for Your Halal Business? appeared first on Muslim Ad Network.

Without technological adaptation, no company can maintain its competitive advantage. Moreover, no company has time to lose in the face of this rapid transformation. Every day we witness the birth of a new digital platform and device. Generation Y and Generation Z can not only anticipate the needs of the generation and determine their needs, but also create the need to keep up with the pace of change. In order to understand the impact of technological developments on consumer behavior and predict the changes that this change will bring across the entire value chain, companies need to focus on the issue of digital transformation. At this point, companies have to develop comprehensive digital strategies and restructure their businesses.

In an environment where customers discover, compare and buy products without leaving home where customers shop with multiple digital devices, companies will be doomed to disappear in this rapid transformation unless new business models can be established where interaction between customers, suppliers, employees and investors can be established.

The point of technological developments in our age is spreading information much faster than in the past and the response time to this new information is getting shorter. In fact, at this point, it is mentioned that technology trends have started to spread out of linearity and exponentially. In other words, a new technology that is emerging immediately reaches maturity and is rapidly beginning to disappear in the face of the destructive effects of another new technology.

Digital Demolition, Continuous Innovation, and Valuable Brands 

When we look at the common points in the success of names such as Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk, we see that they are all names that have quickly brought up companies and brands they have established in the last decade. When we look at the world’s most valuable brands today, it is no coincidence that Google and Amazon are at the top of the list.

According to Diamandis and Kotler, the concept of exponential entrepreneurship lies at the heart of this success. Kotler argues that the way to achieve exponential entrepreneurial spirit is to understand the growth cycles of exponential technologies. Kotler and Diamandis also call this cycle of 6 phases a digital destruction cycle. 

6 D Model in Digital Transformation 

6D Model in Digital Transformation (Diamandis & Kotler, 2016) 

1. Digitization: No idea or technological innovation enters the exponential expansion trend without being digitally expressed. The rate of spread of everything digitized from music to biotechnology is much faster than that of the non-digitized.

2. Deception: Technological trends are not exponentially propagated at a linear rate. Although the diffusion rates of exponential technologies are not noticed at the beginning depending on their usage rates, the destructive effects of these new technologies, which are becoming more and more popular day by day, are in proportion to the diffusion rates.

3. Disruption: New technologies begin to spread and rapidly replace their predecessors. One of the best examples of this could be the devastation that DVD technology inflicts on the VHS market.

4. Demonetization: A large part of the industry starts to use the new technology and it is getting cheaper to produce/develop.

5. Dematerialization: Technologies are made easier to achieve physically.

6. Democratization: Technology is increasingly cheap and accessible to everyone. It can completely disappear under the destructive effect of a new technology.

Although Kotler and Diamandis have defined the digital destruction cycle as 6 phases, we should also know that this cycle starts and ends very quickly. At this point, the reasons for the failure of brands that make successful brands even more successful or are exposed to destruction and disappearance meet in a common area. The most important reason that makes brands valuable and successful is to understand the importance of providing continuous innovation and continuous innovation. If Amazon, which is an undisputed success, remained only as an online selling website, would it be possible to reach this point? By constantly improving its service, Amazon Prime has changed people’s understanding of shopping, and thanks to the technologies it uses, it has revolutionized the creation and use of Big Data. With the data she collected, she was able to analyze consumer behaviors in detail and produced entertaining technologies that would lead the consumer to buy again. Last but not least, Dash Button and Alexa have been developed by Amazon, giving the consumer the message that they already know what they need and this adds stability to the brand loyalty of Amazon users.

Winners and Losers in Continuous Innovation

Behind the success of Google, which became the second most valuable company of 2019, similar to Amazon’s success secrets are available. When we consider each of its products, such as Google Chrome, a browser designed to be fast enough for a mobile application or the modern web, we see that Google takes into account the speed of each new product. In fact, Google’s main strategy is to make things even faster. Every new technology is used brutally, quickly digests and the new masses waiting for the new audience to meet the different needs, satisfying the different problems, the fastest way to introduce the market, quickly update and market again better. In short, it has realized the speed of the digital transformation and has no problems at the point of fitting.

Most Valuable Brands List of 2019 (Forbes,2019)

The opposite of Google and Amazon success examples, which we can look at an example of failure, which is the sad story of how Kodak ended in 2012. Although Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975, it did not invest enough in new developing technologies, or it was too late for these investments. Although Kodak developed a digital camera in 1975, the first of its kind, the product was dropped for fear it would threaten Kodak’s photographic film business. In the 1990s, Kodak planned a decade-long journey to move to digital technology. Kodak continued its traditional camera and film production with a sweaty strategy. However, Kodak didn’t realize the answers to the question of why people take photographs changed. Indeed, people did not take photographs just like they used to save memories for themselves and their loved ones. People took pictures of themselves to show people what they are doing, how they spend time and how they enjoy life. There was a new medium called social media, and now people were using their cameras unrestrained to see and be liked. The most ironic part of this story was that Kodak invented the digital camera, but didn’t take his hand quickly and took no risks to complete the whole digital transformation process for their brand. In short, Kodak has always tried to be an innovative company, but has not been able to take the necessary steps fearlessly and timely, taking into account the speed of digital transformation.

In short, in a world where customers buy image, reputation, service quality, speed and lifestyle rather than just products and services, Muslim companies have to put the issue of digitalization at the top of their agenda in order to build closer relationships with their customers and achieve higher profitability. Companies should understand the importance of digitization, develop new business models, follow new technologies and implement them at full speed, and Muslim business owners should be aware of this necessity. Otherwise, they will lose their competitive advantages and will be sentenced to be deleted from the market by being far behind their competitors who are rapidly adapting to this new order.

As known, digital advertising and marketing are two of the most significant components of recent digital transformation. In this digital transformation age, people are always online and it makes digital advertising tools much more crucial than before. In other words, as part of the digital transformation, Muslim business owners need to use digital advertising and marketing tools to reach their target audiences and let them know their product, brand or services because of higher competition and fast-paced environment in Muslim consumer market just like other markets. Muslim Ad Network helps Muslim business owners attract and keep their customers with a holistic suite of advertising solutions service. By partnering with Muslim Ad Network, you will be provided an opportunity for your digital advertising to reach the highly coveted Muslim online consumer and to adapt to this era of digital transformation 

Go ahead and contact us to reach a wider range of Muslim audiences. 

The post Why Should Muslim Business Owners Adapt to Digital Transformation? appeared first on Muslim Ad Network.

Digital marketing is the complete marketing process of a company or brand which encompasses all marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. In today’s digital era, companies leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers. Digital marketing is a wide concept which include different marketing terms such as SEO,  Email Marketing, App marketing, Content Marketing, and Affiliate Marketing. In other words, while traditional marketing have communication tools such as print ads, direct mail or personal sales, digital marketing can occur electronically and online.This means that there are a number of endless possibilities for brands including email, video, social media, or website-based marketing opportunities. Today, we all live in a digital age and experience a period when people trade through social media channels, where the millennials study their lessons through Youtube and a new technology enters our lives every second.

In this case, companies should change their perspective. Instead of waiting for their target audience to come to them, they should be active in the digital world and reach the right target audience through the right medium. The most logical way of doing this is to follow the changes and trends in the digital world closely and determine the digital strategies that will make them successful.

Since digital marketing trends have been changing drastically every year, companies need to stay up-to-date on the upcoming trends so that they can manage all business processes effectively.

Let’s have a look what are the digital trends for 2020.

1. AI

Artificial intelligence will take over the world! Or at least the world’s simpler jobs. We saw this coming, and we will continue to see it. We are at the beginning of a period in which artificial intelligence is in place and human labor is reduced and turned into more quality oriented works. For instance, we will proceed directly with artificial intelligence for deficiencies in advertisements on a marketplace site, but maybe we will leave customer satisfaction to people again.

As another example, Microsoft and Uber are two companies – in addition to malls, sports arenas and campuses – that are using Knightscope K5 robots to “patrol parking lots and large outdoor areas to predict and prevent crime. The robots can read license plates, report suspicious activity and collect data to report to their owners.” You can rent these R2-D2-like robots for $7 an hour — which is less expensive than a human security guard’s wage. Moreover, this year, Google’s transition from AdWords to Ads and the use of artificial intelligence more extensively in campaign bidding strategies is enough to highlight the importance of artificial intelligence technologies for 2020.

2. Voice Search

Voice Search uses the power of speech recognition to search the web. Instead of typing use voice input to quickly and easily search for the things you care about. Although it seems like a brand-new concept, voice search technology has been around for a while. Programs such as speech-to-text and voice dialing are great examples of voice search. Over 25% of adults in the US own a smart speaker like an Amazon Echo or Google Home.

A new generation search type is now familiar with us and it is more common hearing these voices around.

“Alexa, how many Americans own a smart speaker?”

“66.4 million, or over ¼ of adults in the US.”

or

“Hey Google, How far away is the Moon?

“The Moon is 238,900 miles from Earth”

In addition, 31% of smartphone users worldwide use voice-activated search, like Siri, at least once a week. It is estimated that in 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches. That makes voice search one of the biggest online marketing trends of 2020.

More and more people continue to use Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google Assistant.

Voice search is different from typical desktop or mobile search. When you open Google in your browser and type your question, you’ll see hundreds of pages of search results. It’s not that hard for you to be one of them. But when you ask Siri a question, it will only give you a few specific results. Often only one, yes 1. If your website is one of them, you are lucky and you should adapt your SEO strategy for voice search. It may sound like a fantastic forecast right now, but by 2020, half of all search queries are predicted to be voice-based. Understanding the subtleties of voice search and adding them to your digital marketing strategy is definitely worthwhile.

 3. Personalization

Consumers want brands to deliver personalized products and services without any effort in exchange for their shared personal data. Companies that meet this expectation can achieve increased customer satisfaction, better basket amount and turnover as well as higher brand value. It’s no coincidence that giant brands like Apple and Amazon are the best companies in personalization. Personalization continues to advance as a successful way of influencing the future of the digital world.

According to research conducted by the digital marketing technology company Signal in the USA, a 60% increase is observed in the conversion rates obtained through personalized advertising. 53% of online consumers are more satisfied than retailers who offer a personalized shopping experience. The fact that 45% of users prefer websites that offer personalized product recommendations indicates that this ratio will increase as more recommendations are offered with more accurate personalization.

With hyper-personalization, which is one step ahead of personalization, it is possible to offer personalized products, promotions, discounts and advertisements to the user automatically. In hyper customization, the algorithms are used to determine what the customer needs before  provide detailed insights and enable person-based targeting.

4. Interactive Content

A recent research has shown striking results on the success and reliability of interactive content applications. According to the study;

o   two-thirds (66%) of the respondents stated that with the introduction of interactive content tactics, user participation increased,

o   four out of five content markers (79%) say that combining traditional content marketing tactics with interactive content makes the message catchy, and

o   two-thirds (67%) of the participants agreed that interactive content provided new ways of reformatting passive content.

Netflix, which is one of the world’s largest content producers has introduced interactive titles over the past few years and it first started with the Bandersnatch series.the way Netflix does it is to offer users choices which refer to specific timestamps.The way you can see Netflix doing this is on devices like PS4 which allow you to debug your watching. In the top right, you can see a time bar. When important decisions come around, the title can jump to other points in time. This type of content really impresses the audience deeply because the audience decide the course of the story.

                       An interactive screen example from Bandersnatch

Also, YouTube has set up a new team for interactive content and live features and is planning to offer brand new content to its audience.

5. Shoppable Posts

Instagram shoppable posts are changing the way people shop. Up until recently, adding a link to an Instagram bio was the only organic way for e-commerce stores to drive traffic from Instagram to their landing pages.

However, with shoppable links, suddenly brands have been given the opportunity to turn their Instagram accounts into visual stores, adding product tags and information to their images and linking to product web pages.

On Instagram when you tap a post, you may notice that a little shopping bag comes up in the lower left corner as does a price tag over the object.

From here users clicks on the tag  and reach a page that contains a product description, similar items featured on the same post and other shoppable posts from the brand. Then, if the consumer taps the “Shop Now”, they’ll go directly to the product page. For online retailers, this is a great way to drive traffic to product pages.

Retailers have been using shoppable for a few years, whereas it is believed that they will become one of the rising trends in 2020.

6. Video Ads by Influencers

The video advertising market continues its growth trend every year in 2020. In 2020, the most popular advertising model will be video ads. Users who encounter a lot of advertisements are bored and give importance to quality content in advertisements. The increase in the use of ad blocker applications is the most concrete indicator of this. Therefore, it is expected that there will be a trend towards Influencer Marketing.

7. Augmented Reality (AR)/ Virtual Reality (VR) 

In 2020, the number of Augmented Reality (AR) users is expected to exceed 1 billion. Moreover, it is possible to think that AR will be used four times more than its brother Virtual Reality (VR). AR technology is currently being used successfully by several brands. For example, IKEA, the world’s largest furniture and home decoration store chain, offers users the chance to see how furniture from their homes will look in their homes by it “Place” app. As an affordable application example; Estée Lauder, an American makeup and body care product manufacturer, uses Facebook Messenger chat bots to let users experience makeup products instantly. This technology is very expensive to make similar applications of IKEA. Therefore, you should consider the cost aspect and try more affordable solutions like Estée Lauder. Video content is one of the most common uses of AR. YouTube, Snapchat and Facebook watch more than 22 million videos daily and this number is increasing every day. With regular video content, users will only be able to draw attention for a few seconds, while AR technology can bring attention to 50 seconds. Similarly, you can use this technology to strengthen your brand communication on social media platforms.

Consumers who only need a little motivation to buy can be more easily convinced with AR. Many brands do well behind-the-scenes communication. “We are transparent, our production process is very transparent, come and observe us from production to delivery”. This transparency and sincerity also turns to them as a plus. AR can help such companies to show their experience from miles away, for example to a restaurant, customers before they step into the restaurant.

8. Email Marketing

Email is still one of the best channels you can utilize to nurture leads and get the sale, but it would only work if you study the data and have the right strategies for your business. It also helps to have an open mind about any upcoming trends, including artificial intelligence, robotic process automation and content intelligence. Email marketing is expected to be used more in 2020, due to increasing advertising costs and lower reach rates.

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