Future of Digital Marketing: How It Goes From Here

No matter which domain your brand belongs to, it’s because of effective digital marketing that has made it seen and heard more online. As the market is getting updated with newer technology with each passing moment, the future of digital marketing seems complete with more ferocious strategy-making and execution. Today, in 2022, we are already observing a paradigm shift in digital marketing statistics representing the efficiency of data-backed solutions and their implementation. 

In the past decade, digital marketing has evolved from a luxury to essential for brands, as these govern your brand’s credibility and value. The marketers have gone from following pre-written protocols to developing target-driven strategies that can drive more conversions for your brand.

Brands have observed substantial self-growth in learning about their customers and curating the customer-centric approach. If such a trend continues, the future of digital marketing will soon be entirely technology-driven and focussed on building lasting customer-brand relationships. If you are a beginner in digital marketing and want to gain expertise, check out our digital marketing programs from top universities. 

Let’s have a look into Digital Darwinism which can go a long way in defining the course of digital marketing from here.

Role of Artificial Intelligence

Already comprising a significant part in digital marketing by helping in the in-depth analysis of large volumes of datasets, identify focus areas, and more Artificial Intelligence has helped in profound ways for marketers to learn from these precious insights. The future of digital marketing is an amalgamation of Artificial Intelligence-led solutions and data science that would enable brands to make the most of the content-aware ecosystem. 

They are used across several operations for its voice and face recognition, digital assistants, especially by brands like Netflix and Amazon. A self-sufficient ecosystem in itself, marketers need to transform their approach and take sincerely from analyzing customer behavior. AI also helps in understanding the viable environment for higher, personalized shopping experiences. 

As Artificial Intelligence and marketing come closer, there would be no specific job titles for brands as they can call individuals trained in both a Marketing Intelligence Manager and something similar. The scope of their tasks would increase to particular tech skills and can come with a cross-level specialization and being adept in multiple technologies and automation platforms. 

Digital Assistants would no longer be optional

As with changing digital marketing interfaces, there would be more than 1.6 billion users of virtual assistants by the end of 2020. Therefore, marketers and digital marketing strategies would have to undergo a significant transformation for such voice-based searches and optimize strategies accordingly. Also, it would help marketers understand patterns in their customer behavior and develop actionable solutions because of the use of AI in such devices. 

Embrace Instagram Marketing

With Facebook losing its popularity over the years, newer platforms like Instagram and TikTok would be the new hangout places for millennials and Gen Z, given its neat selling attribute. 

These would help brands target different, newer demographics every day, thus increasing overall customer engagement and more on these platforms. The metrics generated on these platforms would hold the utmost importance as these will be limited to the platform’s continually changing functionalities. 

Read more: Best ways to use Instagram for Business

Social Media would mean more

Social media would stir a lot of activities, given its full scope and popularity in general. In the future, social media would no longer be a place of networking between school friends and acquaintances; it would be a way for brands to establish a customer-centric relationship with their customers without ads or distractions. 

Even today, not all of us visit social networking websites to talk to people. Sometimes, we also follow individual channels/handles that post enriching videos that help us know more about the current technological or biological update. Such coming together of all elements has made Facebook, Instagram, etc. introduce ‘explore’ or ‘search’ categories that help us watch original content without having to move to the newsfeed.

Brands need to leverage such creative methods and come up with subtle advertising strategies to keep their audiences intrigued and come back for more, via insightful content.   

Check out: Social Media Project Ideas for Beginners

Automated Chatbots would be an essential commodity

With AI usage growing exponentially for brands across the world, the chatbots would get more self-aware and able to discern between customer inquiries that need human interference and the ones that can be assisted immediately on itself. Therefore, the customers would also be able to experience quick, seamless online support from their brands in the form of chatbots.

The win-win effect has led many brands to consider advanced chatbot programming for keeping up with their everyday customer requests and help deliver them a gratifying service, round-the-clock. 

• In 2020, according to 80% companies, they’d prefer having chatbots installed because of their following properties:
• 24-hour operations without any distractions or huge investments.

Since a single chatbox can handle multiple inquiries at once and develop instant replies, companies don’t require manual operation.

Overall, the chatbots would be the future concierge for all your customers and be able to exponentially enhance customer services. 

Read: Chatbot Architecture: Types, Function & User Interaction

Value-based content would be preferred

The sheer importance of good, meaningful content would be sought-after by customers and brands online; and therefore in the future of digital marketing, smarter content development would be crucial for everyone. As Google gets smarter with each algorithm update, brands need to be more aware of the content they put out as it would define their visibility and conversions. 

Also Read: Digital Marketing Tutorial

Customers, in general, would incline more towards custom-made content preferably emailers, smaller blogs, videos that deliver crisp, engaging data about their requirements as well as enrich them in the process. Google would also be closely observing and analyzing the accuracy and utility of your website, like a faster loading page, and relevant links in order to place it on the Search Ranking Page Results (SERP).

Top reasons why digital marketing is important

Digitalisation

Digital marketing can help users to digitise their processes which helps them to access content and data from anywhere. They must create a presence in the digital space and social media channels. 

Targeted reach 

The tool of digital marketing helps reach the target audience using the right method, strategy and tools. The users can reach the target audience by using high-quality tools and analysing the engagement data per post as well. 

Performance tracking

The performance tracking of the data allows the users to identify the posts which have generated the most engagement and contributed towards the revenue. 

Monitoring of the campaigns allows the organisations to put their money into the brand, which is promising and can generate higher ROI (Return on Investment).

 The future of digital marketing is bright as every brand wants to turn digital owing to the innumerable benefits and solutions the world of digital marketing holds for itself.

Better interactive experience

Digital marketing is not limited to holding an online presence, rather, it has more to give. The features of like, comment, share, live streams, stories, etc. enhance the quality of interaction between the content producer and content consumer. A subtle form of advertising does not hurt as long as it is not becoming too much and the authenticity of the brand goes away.

Cost-effective

The future digital marketing explained as one of the cost-effective methods. There are various traditional methods of marketing which require the users to burn their pockets. Moreover, traditional methods like cold-calling, ads, etc. are not trackable and easily measurable. Cold-calling requires someone to be at the job always, and billboards and pamphlets are not trackable because one cannot figure out how many people have seen the billboard and how many people have held the pamphlets. 

Easier adaptability 

The medium has higher adaptability due to the nature of the job. One can acquire leads, switch to various digital marketing types, and see what works for them.

Return on investment

The digital marketing strategy allows the brand to invest lesser cost and get maximum returns. The platform is helpful in reaching a wider audience and making the most out of the platform. 

Conclusion

In the end, the future of digital marketing is abundant with being the moment with your customers across several mediums as the technological advancement would bring brands and customers closer than ever. Even for the coming generations, individuals would seek direct, prominent engagement instead of carnations, making the interaction between brands and customers more thriving and meaningful.

If you wish to explore and become an expert in Digital Marketing, check out MICA and upGrad’s Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing & Communication. Become an expert in social media marketing, content marketing, branding, marketing analysis and PR.

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