What does 2020 have in store for digital marketers? In lieu of an actual crystal ball, and not being entirely confident that Alexa has the answer for everything (yet), I’ve collated the best insights from some of the leading digital blogs.
Here are three big trends I think will be worth keeping a close eye on this coming year:
Health
I use my phone far too much. And I’m not doing much about it – not at the moment anyway. But more and more people are starting to.
According to We Are Social, nearly half the world’s population (45 per cent) are now social media users. But research suggests Facebook (as an example) can be bad for our health, giving us a low mood. And yet still it’s extremely popular.
A survey from Exposure Ninja reveals one in three adults in the UK are now reducing their social media use. More people are increasingly choosing to do a digital detox, deleting apps or spending less time on them.
For digital marketers this has consequences. Joanna Carter on the Smart Insights blog says it could affect your customer acquisition and brand awareness campaigns, and offers some wise advice:
‘It’s vital that you don’t start putting all your marketing eggs in the social media bucket. You need to ensure that enough budget and resource is still being given to other channels, including email marketing and search engine marketing.
‘However, it’s also vital that you ensure that any social media presence you do have is as meaningful as possible. Your brand needs to offer more than memes – you need to deliver content that has a positive and memorable impact on your audience and that provides as much value as possible.’
Your brand needs to offer more than memes
Savviness
The most interesting blog I found for 2020 digital marketing trends was from Econsultancy. Here David Yates from agency Elvis says consumers are getting much more savvy than we may think, and we need to act:
‘In a world of high quality, commoditised products, the mass consumer is finally starting to pay attention to the bigger picture of the brands they choose: supply chains, ingredient provenance, worker conditions, political affiliations, et al.
‘And in the world of advertising, this means that advertisers can no longer get away with the glossy, empty promises of yesteryear…
‘In 2020, advertisers will need to walk the talk and talk the walk. Not only making real and substantial changes to the way they run their businesses to align with modern consumer expectations, but also talking about that boldly and authentically so that it gets noticed and drives purchase behaviour.’
Consumers are getting much more savvy than we may think.
Privacy
I remember the introduction of GDPR in May 2018 and the ‘collective gulp’ by people it affects – almost everyone I know! But the burden of this kind of regulation isn’t not going to be getting lighter any time soon.
Adobe’s Digital Trends 2020 blog helpfully reminds us that the laws about what both publishers and advertisers can and can’t do are continuing to evolve. So it’s as important as ever for brands to increase trust and transparency, and for digital marketers to plan ahead to ensure trust and transparency.
And Daniel Gilbert, CEO of Brainlabs tells the Econsultancy blog just how big a deal privacy will be in 2020:
‘This year [2019] we started to see the impact of a new age of data privacy, with a number of high-profile fines being issued under the GDPR, on top of a number of incidents of media owners misusing user data.
‘In 2020, I’d like to see the industry actually following through on past promises and collecting data transparently to improve the overall data economy, and increase trust with consumers. There will be consequences for all of us if we don’t step up our game and treat data with care.’
It’s as important as ever for brands to increase trust and transparency.
Final thoughts
It feels like 2020, will very much be a ‘power to the people’ kind of year, and I personally think that’s a really good thing.
Perhaps it’s worth us all thinking harder about how we will approach people who want and hope for good health, need their privacy respected, and are now much more savvy to classic marketing tactics.
