There’s just about one more month left in the year, so it is time to look forward to 2019 and the promise of everything that the year is likely to bring with it into digital marketing, for both businesses and consumers. While there is always room for new innovations, we are probably going to see more of what started a few years back come into maturity next year, fueled by the rapid improvements in technology.

Automation

Automation is not a new development in marketing, of course, but it has come a long way since its early days where the primary use of the service was basically restricted to emails. The revolution started back in 2006 when software companies slowly started to flesh out the role of automation in marketing and 12 years later, automation is not just a good feature to have in your digital marketing strategy but a necessity if you want to stay competitive. 

To understand how far technology has evolved now, take the example of the SendinBlue marketing automation software, which can target potential customers with precision, based on their online activities. It can, of course, also do everything else that we have come to expect form automation tools, such as sending transactional emails and texts, tracking data for ongoing marketing campaigns, lead generation, and so much more. In 2019, it is expected that automation will evolve further towards perfecting the features that it already offers and will likely integrate advanced AI more intricately into the automation process, to further improve the accuracy and widen the feature set.

Voice Search

The data regarding the searches made on Google and on other search engines is pretty much the most important aspect of digital marketing – and that’s not going to change anytime soon. However, there might soon be a change in how people conduct their searches. Typing something out in a search engine with a virtual or real keyboard is what the majority of the population still depends on while entering the keywords, but in the last two years, voice search has replaced some of the typing for sure. 

The general rule of technology is that it makes our lives easier and saying things out loud is a lot more natural, faster, and easier than typing them out with a keypad. As machine learning enables more accurate voice recognition, voice search is the next step of evolution for internet searches. With smart speakers, smart assistants and smartphones being adopted and integrated into our lives intimately, expect voice searches to play a big role in digital marketing next year.

Content Marketing

One of the most prominent effects that the internet has had on general consumers is that the easy access to information has made them more aware than ever before. We are witnessing a shift in consumer behavior, where people are relying more on solid information before making their purchases, rather than on dedicated ads. Ads do not work as well on their own these days unless they are incorporated naturally into relevant content that offers value to potential customers.

The number of people with smartphones is only increasing with each passing day, and the newer generations are digitally hooked to social media and the internet in general. All of this is going to amplify in 2019, giving rise to a new generation of well-informed customers that are more likely to be impressed by content marketing, rather than promotional ads. 

Now, content refers to anything and everything that’s on the internet, which includes videos, music and text content, but what is most appropriate depends largely on the nature of the content itself. For example, YouTube videos are unmatched for learning a lot of things and the top channels do enjoy a lot of traffic, but the clickthrough rate and conversion rate is still much higher with text-based web content. This happens because when someone watches a video, they are as naturally inclined to click a link below in the description as they are to see the next one, but while reading a piece of engaging content, it is almost instinctive to check out a hyperlinked keyword of interest.

Artificial Intelligence

There has not been a technological buzzword in the last few years that is more popular than AI or machine learning. While it is still in its nascency, AI is already changing digital marketing in more ways than most of us are even aware of, and we have already discussed a few of them in the previous points. Everything from predictive analysis to natural language processing is improving right now, and by mid-2019, even bigger improvements are expected, which will directly impact digital marketing.

Brand new and unexpected trends might also pop up, and even that is quite expected, given how fast things are changing in the online marketing scene. However, the points we discussed here are definitely going to play big roles next year.