The modern customer is tech-savvy, eager to try new experiences, and expects brands to evolve in useful ways, including how they engage with consumers. Any business that invests in digital marketing must understand what customers want and keep up with trends driven by customer likes and preferences.
You already know customers expect greater personalization, authentic brand communications, and engaging brand experiences. In this post, we discuss these and other game-changing digital marketing trends for 2024 that can help drive business growth.
Transformative digital marketing trends you cannot ignore
An awareness of trends in the digital marketing world makes it easier to plan, strategize, and leapfrog the competition. Here are the top digital marketing trends for 2024.Â
Hyper-personalization
Brands are increasingly leveraging AI and machine learning to improve the speed and effectiveness of communications with customers and leads. As AI tools become more affordable, more businesses will use them to create hyper-personalized messages. Here are the common ways in which marketers are using new technologies:
Machine learning algorithms to deliver hyper-personalized content
Machine learning algorithms can process vast amounts of data. They look at users’ browsing history to understand what they search for, view, and interact with online, identify patterns and preferences based on previous buying behavior, and analyze user interactions and interests on social platforms. By combining this data, brands can anticipate user needs and recommend relevant products or personalized discounts.
AI algorithms can create and adjust customer profiles in real time and continuously adjust behavior data based on each new interaction. This incremental learning and refining of customer profiles makes marketing campaigns progressively smarter as they’re rolled out across more customers and channels. With AI algorithms, marketers can go beyond simple segmentation and create unique customer experiences tailored to each individual.
There are many benefits of hyper-personalization:
- Enhanced customer experience: Tailoring content, recommendations, and interactions to individual preferences and behaviors fosters trust among consumers.
- Higher engagement: Relevant and timely interactions lead to increased engagement and loyalty.
- Increased conversions: Personalized recommendations boost conversions by suggesting products or services aligned with user preferences
Predictive analytics to optimize ad targeting
Predictive analytics tools analyze extensive datasets, enable quick responses to market changes, and enhance ad performance, customer engagement, and conversion rates. The adoption of predictive analytics tools is an important digital marketing trend to note given how it allows brands to more easily create personalized campaigns by precisely targeting audiences.
Furthermore, they enable personalization at scale, delivering customized ads to individual consumers in real time, increasing engagement, conversions, and customer loyalty. Predictive analytics solutions optimize ad campaigns, make quick adjustments based on new data, and improve the customer experience. They also provide a deeper understanding of customer behavior, allowing for more personalized experiences, increased conversions, and enhanced customer satisfaction.
Chatbots for instant support
Customers expect businesses to understand their needs and provide personalized interactions. Digital marketers are implementing personalization techniques in chatbots to improve brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. Common personalization strategies for chatbots include:
- Collecting customer information to personalize the conversation: For example, address the user by name and offer recommendations based on their preferences.
- Using customer data for recommendations: Chatbots can analyze past purchases or interactions to suggest products that align with users’ likes and preferences.
- Multilingual chatbots reach more customers around the globe: Chatbots that communicate with users in their local language enhance both engagement and quality of interactions.
AI writing assistants to create content at scale
The use of AI writing assistants is easily one of the top digital marketing trends for 2024. AI-assisted writing has caught on for equipping marketers with the ability to create great content as fast as possible. Content creators within a marketing team can ideate, proofread, and produce blogs, social media posts, and emails at a much higher speed than what is possible when the same tasks are done manually.
AI writing assistants are just that – they help human writers complete tasks with less physical and cognitive effort. Creativity, personal insights, and everything else that contributes to unique and engaging content must be supplied by writers themselves.
Video marketing is a kingmaker
It’s no secret that videos are a more engaging and intuitive format to share most types of brand content. Video marketing receives a higher allocation of marketing spend due to its higher potential for conversions and product stickiness. Here are some supporting statistics from video animation company Wyzowl’s 2024 video marketing survey:
- 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool.
- 88% of video marketers view video as an important part of their overall strategy.
- 68% of marketers who don’t use video say they plan to start using video in 2024.
- 75% of video marketers say they have used AI tools to help them create or edit videos.
The following video marketing trends are expected to continue their dominance this year:
- Short form videos, which attract a large viewership on Tik-Tok, Instagram (Reels), and YouTube (shorts).
- Live videos, which make brands appear more accessible and authentic. They’re ideal to interact with your audience in real time via a chat, poll, or Q&A, and have use cases ranging from company announcements and store openings to corporate events and community outreach events.
- User generated content, which provides social proof and is highly influential in promoting acceptance and adoption of your product.
- Contextual and personalized video ads, which can be employed at various stages of the sales cycle.
- Videos communicating environmental and social responsibility.
The last point brings us to the next digital marketing trend – ethical marketing.
Honesty in marketing your brand pays off
Ethical marketing is a strategy where businesses commit to responsible, open, and transparent communications with consumers. It is based on the principles of honesty, fairness, accountability, and sustainability. Ethical marketing brings benefits such as brand trust, positive publicity, and positive mentions and backlinks from authoritative websites.
An example of ethical marketing focused on inclusivity can be a video campaign that recognizes and respects diversity by including models belonging to various cultures, ethnicities, genders, and body types. Factual testimonials are another example, helping build trust and credibility with customers. For example, if a customer’s feedback states that they’re satisfied with your service and, barring one or two occasions, your performance has met expectations, presenting the testimonial in its original form is ethical marketing.
Patagonia, the American manufacturer of outdoor clothing and gear, does ethical marketing well. The company has promoted conscious consumption, encouraging customers to repair their older garments rather than buying new ones, educated people on the natural resources used in making clothing, and shared short films based on the real-life stories of the challenges faced by people across the world in protecting their environment.
Dove’s ethical marketing approach is inspirational. The company has received positive publicity for its campaigns promoting body positivity and inclusivity. The brand’s ads challenge traditional beauty standards and feature diverse models, promoting self-acceptance and confidence. Since the launch of their Campaign for Real Beauty in 2004, the company has gone from strength to strength, helping women foster a positive relationship with beauty. The Dove Self-Esteem Project and Real Beauty Pledge are among the campaigns driving the ongoing mission and commitment.
Influencer marketing works!
Did you know over 81% of marketers have a dedicated influencer marketing budget and that brands are only increasing their influencer marketing spend? The influencer ecosystem today consists of mega >1 million followers), macro (>500,000 followers), medium (50k-100k followers), micro (10k-50k followers), and nano influencers (>10k followers). Nano- and micro-influencers have higher engagement rates, and typically charge less than mega influencers.
It’s worth having an influencer marketing strategy and closely monitoring results from it. When choosing influencers to partner with, check if they post a lot of original content and their followers’ interests have some overlap with your brand’s product. When creating posts, avoid excessive product promotion, include links where possible, and avoid focusing on product launches.
Here are some ideas on leveraging influencer marketing:
- Podcasts are being recorded and downloaded at record rates. Reach out to hosts of popular podcasts for endorsements.
- Avoid going by follower count. Follow the chosen influencers for a few weeks. You’ll know what they’re about, the engagement they receive by way of comments, and whether they’re a good fit for your brand.
- Take someone who works for you and make them an influencer. For example, if you’re in the beauty business, you can show a member of your team using your products.
- Explore the possibility of using influencer content as paid social ads for remarketing audiences.
Your social media pages should make a positive impression on the people who arrive there after learning about you from the influencer with whom you’ve partnered. So, make sure that your social media profiles are optimized.
Implement, monitor results, and learn
The only way to know if a digital marketing trend will work for your business is to test it out. Do what your budget allows you, track traffic, sign-ups, conversions, and other metrics, and determine if you want to continue in the same direction or change tack. Good luck!