Almost 70 years ago, the initial stages of marketing were born. During the post-industrial revolution, products had been made for consumers to own—at their cheapest expense.
Fast forward to the 90’s: social marketing started to promote products of good quality, not just utility or affordability.
Then we arrive in the 21st century: consumers want more than just the quality of the product, they want an experience—having the “customer journey” with the brand.
As you develop your marketing strategy and plot your customer’s journey for 2019, here’s some helpful facts gathered by Single Grain:
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) can analyze consumer behavior and search patterns, utilizing data from social media platforms and blog posts to help businesses understand how users and customers find their products and services. For example, Facebook messenger bots (which we’ll talk more about later) can help you automate and optimize your customer service.
- Programmatic Advertising is changing the face of digital advertising so swiftly that, according to eMarketer, almost 90% of digital display ads in the U.S. will be programmatic by 2020.
- Bots – This AI-based technology uses instant messaging to chat in real-time, day or night, with your customers or site visitors. With 1.4 billion people interacting with chatbots, 80% of businesses are already using or plan to use chatbots by 2020. And by 2022, chatbots will help businesses save over $8 billion per annum, especially in the banking and healthcare industries.
- People spend an average of 3 hours and 35 minutes on their smartphones every day, and by 2019, mobile devices will be the medium that gets the most minutes in the U.S. (finally surpassing television).
- With the availability of data like purchase history, consumer behavior and links clicked, custom content has never been easier. In fact, 96% of marketers believe that personalization advances customer relationships.
- Incorporating video into your digital marketing strategy in 2019 can help. Here are some quick facts: 70% of consumers say that they have shared a brand’s video. 72% of businesses say the video has improved their conversion rate.52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions. 65% of executives visit the marketer’s website and 39% call a vendor after viewing a video.
- Smart speakers like Alexa and Google Home are also on the rise: 39 million Americans use smart speakers and 65% of them say they wouldn’t want to go back to life without their voice-controlled assistant.
