We're coming 'round the bend of a historic year for advertising and marketing. When thousands of brands had to perform a massive PIVOT in their strategies in March, they had to learn quickly what had the most impact on reaching customers amidst a strange, new landscape.
With Facebook on shaky ground, business owners have had to lean into other modes of connecting with customers. The data is in and chatbots, video and email are reported as the top digital trends in 2020.
CHATBOTS
We've been saying this about Insurance Soup's favorite Chatbot, Tacobot, for years. Bots are unparalleled when it comes to 24-hour customer attention while lowering a business's human resources costs, well, because you're using robot resources. Customers are known to be more responsive to bots than they would be to online calling centers when brand communication is required. They've become one of the most dynamic trends in 2020, bringing customers and brands together in an exciting new way.
VIDEO MARKETING
For better or for worse, we're living in a time where everyone has a phone (pretty much) in reach at all times and brand studies are showing that we're using them to share video content regularly. From platforms like Instagram and TikTok to YouTube and back, viewers are engaging with brands that utilize short video, live-streaming video and longer-form video more than ever before. Swipe up and clickable features inside video are positively affecting brand conversion rates.
EMAIL? YES, EMAIL.
Long gone are the days of the plain-text based email. Now, chances are, every brand that emails you is sending you what looks like a perfectly stylized web page with flashy buttons and bells and whistles. I get about 475 of these from Old Navy a day, and I'll tell you what, I be clicking. These formats are driving interaction more so than your typical old school email would have. If you're not using emails that marry form and function, it's time to take your email game to the next level.
We're seeing a giant leap toward a highly engaged experience when it comes to the digital market. Customers are requiring immediate attention and entertainment with a side of "sell me something". Your best bet is bringing your brand to the customer and putting it front and center, then throwing on some of the old razzle dazzle to then bring them back to you.