Digital marketing trends 2018, a glance for better scope
If someone was to sit on a hill-top and see below the churn taking place in the world of digital marketing, what would come across is a lot of actions and motions dovetailing into one another and nothing making much sense. Yes, this could be the first impression. Looking long enough what one gets to see is a very systematic churn in more than one seemingly unrelated field which may give the impression of confusion- which is not!
For the digital churn likely to take place in 2018 and beyond, there is a clear trend which points towards:
- Use of cutting-edge technology in data segregation and analysis AND even customer service and sales!
We thought of machines were the things which could do humongous number crunching and very little otherwise. Number crunching for data and trend analysis and predictability patterns they still do and are likely to do ever better in time. What is new is that they are now doing stuff earlier within the domain of humans or the kind of stuff one could only think about given that it was expensive then.
AI, VR, Bots are thus not something in the realms of thoughts. They aren’t even possibilities any more. They are THE REALITY! Amazon Go, a store in Seattle, US has very little staff and no checking counters. There isn’t even a system of queuing for coming and going. Why? ‘Cause every action to control and manage a store is automated without making it obvious. When the buyer picks up anything, AI takes care of the billing and when leaving the stores, debits the total from the purchaser’s account with Amazon! Next in line are bots who shall talk to you, know what you want and give you exactly the same. High-end stores like Starbucks use bots in the US for this. Besides streamlining the sales process, it enriches the experience and most important of all takes note of every customer for highly personalized sales pitches in the future.
- Use of simple narratives to explain the product and its USPs and sales campaigns
A product is no more a stand-alone one-sale product. In the noisy and competitive world of advertising and marketing, a customer using a product is considered an opportunity was given to the seller to set things in order for bigger and better things in the future. Using chatbots and AI as mentioned above, a single sales experience is channelized into entire personalized and planned sales pipelines for the future. No opportunity is left to engage with the customers for all times to come. Simple emails and WhatsApp messages have given way to highly-specialized and emotive marketing which takes care of each individual’s needs.
- Move first and reap all the advantage i.e., the first mover advantage!
Competition and that too the cut-throat variety does one thing to those who get left behind. It leaves precious little for them. That being the case, it is the leader who takes everything and there is where every marketer wants to be i.e., the Numero-Uno! For that the traditional mail, Whatsapp, and a few social-media sites do not seem to interest anymore. Everyone- especially those who want to win at all costs and come up with the most sales are now approaching even specialized sites and groups like Linkedin, Quora and similar platforms which guarantee a very, very loyal, focused yet a discerning group of people. On Quora, the likes of Balaji Vishwanath if approached by any marketer for business development, can do wonders to the numbers and bottom line- provided the marketer can past muster their well-defined thoughts on products and sellers!
- Rise of the new gadget-warrior, the Mobile Phone!
It sits pretty close to our hearts and even keeps track of our heart’s beats! With the minimum of tweaks and additions, a mobile phone comes closer to its users than even spouses, children and dear ones. The next big thing in digital marketing is thus focused around getting things right for the smartphones, be it getting sites and content which fit the confines of the phone’s screens! Next would be the digital marketers’ ascent of getting their sites to open in reasonable time (usually in the region of 3 seconds) to be followed by specialized videos which play flawlessly on any mobile.
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Animation & VFX: Career and industry growth (2018)
