What did digital agencies focus on in 2020 and what will be trending in 2021 in the digital marketing world?

When it comes to new trends, the digital space is skyrocketing in new and natty directions. 2020 came with a lot of unexpected surprises (good and bad) but when we talk about trends, the year gave us some distinguished advancement that was never really considered before.

This year’s trends have spurred a dramatic shift in marketing techniques and consumer manners globally. From AI advancement to snackable video content on tik tok, the digital space was the only space people could connect and reach out to each other during this pandemic.

Let us see some of the trends which were the highlights of 2020 and even the best digital marketing agency in India got on board to follow the same.

1. Savvy marketers use visual content

When it comes to marketing your content, it is estimated that 62 percent of millennials enjoy and are more interested in visual content as compared to any other technology. We can even say that the extreme growth of platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest are the reason behind this shift reason being the users are consuming these image-heavy platforms on an everyday basis.

When you add visuals such as infographics, videos, and images to your texts, it becomes more interactive to the user. 91% of the customers agreed that visual content enhances their shopping experience. Whereas 86% say that it improves discoverability.

2. Voice Interaction will level-up

Verbal interaction with devices is moving upwards and there is a continuous rise of hosts like Alexa, Siri,s Google, and other hosts of “smart devices”.

The principal reason behind this rise is that people love to talk and when you can have something (a robot) around you all the time to discover, interact and search new things then that’s where it gets exciting.

3. New breed SEO

Every digital marketing agency today is trying to stay on the top of the SEO game and well why not? Today conversion rate from SEO is higher than any other traditional outbound method, making it 14.6%.

2020 brought us new SEO hacks which boosted the conversion rates immensely but here’s the thing, a digital design agency must be updated with the new changes since search algorithms are frequently changing. Sometimes following an outdated hack may end up jeopardizing your rankings.

4. Social Commerce

In the past decade, we have all seen how the eCommerce Industry has flourished plenty and so did the social media platforms. It’s no surprise how everyone is now using social media as a space to promote and market their business. Smart marketers are now using this platform to their advantage for example social commerce is shoppable posts and stories with plugins and apps.

36% of internet users in the United States say that social networks largely influence their product choices as compared to other sources. Well, it’s safe to say that stats don’t lie and we have a hot digital marketing trend going on this year.

Now that we know these top trends that were being followed in 2020 let us put some light on the upcoming trends that are going to take over the digital marketing world in 2021.

1. Lifecycle Marketing: Dump the sales funnel

The sales funnel is dead. Bold statement? Yes. But looking at the facts, it is very much true. Today when you want to predict anything about the buyers, the sales funnel doesn’t help at all. Modern buyers are highly unpredictable. Therefore, the new sales model of lifecycle marketing has been adapted where all the factors like soft skills, content marketing, and real buyer journeys are aligned.

The difference is simply the funnels keep narrowing down the buyer’s prospects into tighter stages whereas in lifecycle marketing the process is highly consumer-centric and they are given exactly what they need and want.

2. Conversational Marketing

No doubt, conversational marketing is the most exciting trend when it comes to doing business. There is a rapid growth of smart buyers who are actively looking for smart speakers to resolve their query processing, messaging, and conversational interfaces. The automated conversation that your website visitors receive saves time, human labour and is available 24/7.

AI is fuelling this trend immensely. This one-at-a-time approach is helping to build excellent relations with your consumers.

3. Customer privacy and KYC

With the rigorous violation of customer data by various industries and companies, this trend has become extremely necessary to safeguard your consumers’ privacy. With the new identity management and KYC (Know your customer) you can now increase security, reduce frauds, and accelerate insights into the customer’s presence across various devices.

Make sure you are up to date with the trends to have a flourishing business in the foreseeable future.