How Has Technology Transformed Digital Marketing?
Thanks to the developments in technology, digital marketing has become more personalized and integrated into the buyers’ ecosystem. Years ago, digital marketing was just about creating a link between the brands and potential customers. Today, it has transformed into delivering values, speed, and interaction. The best example of evolving technology is the number of websites. Today, there are more than 1.7 billion websites on the internet. In 2000, there were just 17 million webpages. Digital marketing is no longer a luxury, and nor is it just an optional step towards success. Over the last decade or so, the trends and changes in digital marketing have some diverse turns and twists. Let us see how the growing technology is transforming digital marketing as we speak.
Digital funnel
Digital funnel is the marketing jargon for tracing buyer behavior from the stage where a buyer realizes that he needs the product/service and ends at the decision-making stage. The analytics tools and social media platforms allow brands to create personalized marketing materials to engage with the customer at each stage. Advanced technologies like AI help brands to understand patterns behind the change in demand. This insight helps brands optimize their marketing strategy.
Social media influence
A decade ago, social media was just for teenagers and tech-savvy adults, who only used it to hang out with their social circle. Today, every small and large business tries to create an online presence on these social media platforms. Social media can turn creativity into potential leads. It is not about just creating pages. SMM concepts are today advocating the importance of creating value for your customers. Every single post or campaign should add a specific value to your customers to gain attention.
Mobile-focused marketing
In 2019, there were 5 billion people who used mobile phones. It means 5 billion customers are open to your marketing campaigns focused on mobile users. A while ago, mobile responsive webpages and apps were just some added advantages. Today, they are straight down basic requirements. In 2019, users accessed 1/4th of the emails via smartphones. Thus, not only webpages, even email marketing, are becoming mobile-focused. Push notifications and mobile ads are getting more attention among users.
Personalization
Due to advancement in technology, it is possible to track your digital footprint, to some extent. Thus, it is possible to create personalized campaigns. Did you check out baby clothes in an online clothing store? You might see more ads for similar clothing in other pages, and suggestions to see Facebook pages of related genres. Leave a cart full of items in an online store without paying, and you would receive a mail reminding that your cart is waiting. It ensures that the brand is trying to market something to the customers every single minute. It starts from ‘recommended results based on your recent searches’ to personalized email marketing contents.
Appraising campaigns
Analytics has become a leading tool for campaigners to create outstanding ads and marketing content. It is possible to understand how effective, reaching, and potentially inducing, every single element is, with the help of data collection. Say, you create an ad on Facebook. You can find the number of people visiting the page, showing interest in the content, viewing the inventory of products, and so on. Do you own a website? Today, you can track the bounce rate, people viewing CTA content, and so on. This consistency in appraising helps brands to create continuous development to their message. By the end, you get a more responsive, targeted, and agile marketing plan.
Speed
If you allow your customers to wait 24 hours before he gets information about your brand, he will end up becoming your competitor’s customer in the next few minutes. It is all about speed. Every single exchange has to be immediate. The chatbots, 24/7 customer service, tutorial videos, self-explanatory web content, and review pages are just the beginning. When a customer sees your ad, he writes a comment. You should respond and accept suggestions. This interaction helps the brand to create individual attention.
While talking about speed, automation is something that goes with it. Automation helps to track buyer behavior, address basic requirements, recognize actions, send a reminder or information emails, and help customers get an agent’s attention faster.
Video and voice marketing
Digital marketing was once all about content in blogs, pictures about the products, webpages, and so on. The streaming speed improvement and smartphone ability to access large videos with little to no buffer created a new space for digital marketers. Video tutorials, video marketing ads, and related content are now widespread. 70% of consumers share brand videos, and 52% of customers shared that they find video content to increase the reliability they have on that brand.
Voice-based searches and home products like Alexa or Siri in your iPhone is turning digital marketing leaders towards voice-based marketing. The content is now voice-friendly, allowing the AI to read out the sentences and uses a lot of common slangs that people generally use while talking. Verbal interaction helps brands to provide answers to queries and create personalized customer engagement.
Omnichannel marketing
Digital marketing is no longer one-platform oriented. It is about consistency. If you wish your customers to trust, you should be everywhere. The omnichannel marketing concept helps brands to deliver a cohesive message through every channel possible. Such a marketing strategy is plausible, thanks to AI technologies and advanced tools. The omnichannel tracking also helps in reputation management.
Digital marketing trends and changes ensure a brand to stay afloat. It has become a mandate to adhere to these technologies to stay current. Cloud computing helps to store massive data, allowing access to content much faster. Google’s algorithm forces brands to create content-rich webpages. VR techniques allow brands to offer creative edge beyond their competitors. The tracking tools help identify brand conversations (whenever a customer mentions your brand in any social media). These changes are not permanent, either. Next year, new technologies might arise, and digital marketing might turn into a new arena. Who knows; Google lens and self-driving cars might turn digital marketing into something new.
