Marketing Essentials for 2020
Way forward for brands’ marketing strategies to win customers in 2020
The year 2019 witnessed some innovative and thought-provoking marketing campaigns. The Sephora’s “We belong to something beautiful” campaign promoting gender diversity and inclusiveness, Taco Bell’s The Bell Hotel as a successful experiential marketing strategy and Twix’s limited Meltdown device that combined coffee with the candy bar are few of them. Brands like Mountain Dew and Oreo exploited the hype of “Game of Thrones” with their marketing tie-ins, including thrilling advertisements and product innovation (Mountain Dew introduced cans that revealed series content when chilled). All these initiatives left the customers spell-bound and enhanced brands’ customer base.
Such tremendous success is a result of in-depth research on consumers, creative thinking, and dedication. With changing consumer preferences and emerging technological advancement, brands need to be engaged in continuous research and out-of-the-box ideas to triumph. Following are the key ways by which brands can use their marketing strategy to reach the pinnacle of success in 2020 and beyond:
Don’t Forget What Your Brand Stands for
The biggest mistake that brands make is that they lose the brand essence and dilute their brand in an attempt to expand in all directions. This helps them with short-term profits but weakens their emotional bonding with their customers. So, to achieve success in 2020, all marketing communications should encompass a common message that promotes the brand essence.
Entice and Retain Customers through Content Marketing
Customers want a value addition to the product or service portfolio. If they get something more valuable from your brand, they will keep coming back to you. Effective content marketing engages the audience and builds brand advocacy by making people feel that the brand cares about them and creates content to address their needs.
For example, Loreal posts makeup tutorials and other relevant content in the Beauty Magazine section of its website. This strategy retains the customers and also subtly prompts them to use its products.
Inqline also engages its customers by posting relevant blogs on customer support and enhancing the customer experience through Artificial Intelligence. Producing consistent and quality content is the key to attract customers to your brand, and Inqline is doing it quite effectively.
Research posits that:
“businesses that publish blog content have 434% more search-indexed pages than those without. Content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing, but it generates more than three times as many leads.”
These findings bolster the efficacy of content marketing done right. The impact and scope of content marketing are increasing significantly. Hence, companies need to master it to be successful this year.
Latch on to Influencer Marketing to be Successful
Influencer marketing is a brilliant way to entice customers to your brand.
According to a study, “influencer marketing is set to become a $10 billion market by 2020.”
Moreover, 61% of consumers say that micro-influencers produce the most relatable content. Hence, brands should be more focused on micro-influencers as that would help in cost reduction and would be more impactful. According to the Mediakix Influencer Marketing survey, 71% of marketers say the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other sources. It has become the fastest-growing technique of online customer acquisition. Marketers must invest in influencer marketing, as customers are heavily dependent on their recommendations. However, they need to be precarious in selecting the right influencer for their brand based on relevance to their target audience. The perception of influencers is carried forward to the brand. Hence, brands should be careful about any negative associations with the individual.
Brands like General Electric and BMW exploited Influencer Marketing to boost the impact of their campaigns. BMW leveraged the power of influencers such as Paris Hilton, Dorothy Wang, and others to document their road trip to Coachella. This was a part of BMW’s experiential marketing campaign #RoadtoCoachella to appeal to the Millennials and Gen Z at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. This campaign was a huge success and achieved the goal of engaging with Millennials and Gen Z. GE also utilized influencer marketing for its GE Insta Walk campaign. The influencers toured its manufacturing facilities and uploaded pictures with hashtags. This produced astonishing results for GE’s Instagram (8 million views).
According to a study, “49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations for their purchase decisions.”
This is because the followers trust the influencers and try to adopt their lifestyle, habits, and brands used by them, which showcases a fantastic opportunity for brands to increase their customer base. However, the quality of the product or service should at least meet the brand promises if not exceed them. The credibility of the influencer is also at stake if he/she endorses a poor quality product. The trend of influencer marketing will continue to be lucrative for brands in 2020; therefore, it’s essential for marketers to include it in their marketing strategy. The results will be even more favorable if the influencers adopt a story-telling approach to recommend the brands.
Incorporate Augmented Reality to Marketing Campaigns
Augmented reality is one of the most advanced features that elevate the impact of a marketing campaign. The tech-savvy customers of today admire campaigns with an AR touch. One of the most creative campaigns of 2019 includes the Burn that Ad campaign of Burger King. It allowed the users to virtually set their competitors’ advertisements on fire for a free burger. This campaign was a huge success resulting in 1.5 Million downloads of the Burger King app, which made it the most downloaded app in Apple’s App Store for several consecutive days.
According to the latest market research report by Technavio, the global augmented reality (AR) market is expected to grow by USD 76.99 billion during 2020–2024.
Hence, marketers need to explore creative ways through which they can incorporate Augmented Reality in their marketing campaigns as it holds the future of marketing.
Create Impact through Video Marketing
Videos are a great way to grab viewers’ attention. They serve as an amazing platform to communicate using a storytelling approach that creates an emotional connection with the customers. They also help in making the brand appear more authentic and honest. It is predicted that online video will contribute to more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2022. Hence, marketers should focus on video marketing for maximum engagement.
Attract Customers through Ephemeral Content Marketing
Ephemeral content marketing is the most cost-effective and attention-grabbing way to attract a myriad of customers to your brand. It is incredibly effective as it uses the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) emotional response to make the customers stay connected. Most social media platforms allow you to put stories and have live videos. Stories disappear after 24 hours but leave a high impact. They allow the brand to build an emotional connection by showcasing the human touch of the brand.
Ephemeral content marketing is a great way to prompt responses from the customers, and then marketers can formulate strategies based on them. Apart from this, the stories that highlight sales and discount offers act as a call to action for customers increasing impulsive buying. Brands can also share their customers’ content and appreciate their efforts. Ephemeral content leads to a higher level of brand awareness. It sparks interest in the customers and lets the brand embrace authenticity, as the stories are mostly relevant to daily life. Hence, marketers should produce consistent and authentic ephemeral content to keep their customers engaged and acquire new ones.
Increase Engagement with Interactive Content
Marketers should try to share interactive content that prompts viewers to participate. Quizzes, contests, giveaways, and live chat are some of the examples through which customer engagement can be maximized.
Make it count
The primary aspect of effective marketing encompasses the extent to which brands know their customers. This understanding is derived from an in-depth study of the preferences of customers and their decision-making journey. Data analytics should be used to track changes in customer preferences. More than 4 billion people around the world are online; therefore, brands should put great focus on their social media strategy as ephemeral marketing, influencer marketing, and the use of augmented reality are among the most trending marketing techniques for 2020. Brands should make sure that they exploit these trends to the maximum to achieve skyrocketing success.