How Digital Trends Are Shaping Beyond 2020

Digital experts and stakeholders are on watch out for digital trends and best practices that will surface and make a mark this year and beyond. In this list, we have gathered for you the top five digital trends and how they are shaping up this year and in the coming years.

1. Search will keep on changing

Audience Intelligence company, SparkToro, published a report on the changing search behavior of digital users. Accordingly, the number of zero clicks is rising and will continue to rise. More and more people are searching online through voice search, and search engines, such as Google, are picking websites to feature in their rich results. That is why SEO strategists are encouraged to not only focus on keywords and creating quality content but to optimize their on-page SEO as well.

2. Video is just going to get bigger

There are two developments to pay close attention to in terms of videos; platforms are now including doing lives as execution, and brands are creating more long-form videos. On the first development, live streaming is becoming the norm. Brands already recognize that live streaming is a great way to improve their audience engagement by doing simulcasts or broadcasting lives on multiple platforms.

The second development further reiterates the importance of including video in a brand’s content marketing plan. Videos can be repurposed into multiple content types and stories. One long-form video could be repurposed into a number of video snippets and audio files that can be shared through multiple platforms.

3. Use of customer data platforms

2020 was a year of reminding everyone of the importance of data analytics and the best practices to get the most out of business and marketing data. In the years after, data analytics is still seen as an enabler for brands to provide the best experience for their customers. One such tool to help brands do this that are customer data platforms (CDP). Investing in a CDP will help a brand not only make sense of the data that they have, but also use it to provide good customer experiences.

4. Focus on omnichannel tactics

Multi-channel and omnichannel are jargons thrown around by boardroom for the past few years and it’s about time to actually realize it. Creating different types of content and optimizing it for multiple channels and their users is a good start to doing a multi-channel approach. For those looking at operationalizing omnichannel, a way is to create multiple customer experiences that transcend both the online and offline experience a customer goes through when interacting with a brand.

5. Face-to-face is still unparalleled

Despite all the digital trends that are popping up left and right,  investing in face-to-face customer engagement is still crucial. The unparalleled experience of in-person interaction still provides an authentic connection between a brand and an individual that no digital trend, technology, or application can duplicate, at least for now.

So, there you have it! The top five things to look forward to this year and beyond. It’s a lot to take in and it might even alter this year’s plan. Then again, that is the beauty of digital; it is ever-changing, and brands are expected to be flexible, adaptable, and agile enough to go with the ever-changing tides.

Remember, these are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what to expect this year. There are still more trends in technology, applications, best practices, theories, and ideas that it will take one person years to master and understand all of it. In CDM’s Digital Marketing Fundamentals Program, you will be focusing on not only creating a seamless digital strategy, but also on assessing the trends in digital marketing and combining them with the basics of marketing.