THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Manilka Ediriweera delves into how technology is changing digital marketing

Digital marketing has come a long way in the last 20 years and is undoubtedly here to stay. Along with other technological advancements, it has disrupted and revolutionised the corporate world – and become a priority for success.

And the value of embracing and exploiting digital marketing for businesses to stay relevant is a given in today’s context; and it will continue to play an equally important or even more crucial role in the future too.

However, the obvious question is what’s in store for digital marketing?

Though nothing is certain with the rapid changes in the business and technology domains, what’s guaranteed is that things change quickly. And digital marketing too will undergo rapid transformations in the years to come.

Let’s consider three digital marketing trends that could take centre stage in the next two decades…

PERSONALISATION Have you ever had personalised content based on your online activity? It’s a little creepy at times. So think of personalisation now and double or even triple that. That will be the level of personalisation 20 years from now.

Businesses collect extensive data about their customers to understand them better. With technology such as IoT, and exponential growth in the adoption rate of smart home devices and wearables, the amount of data that businesses have will skyrocket.

The Internet of Things connects various devices and also captures staggering amounts of data based on users’ online and even offline activities.

Digital marketers can leverage this data to gain insights, identify patterns, and predict consumer behaviour and lifestyles. Businesses can then use this information to provide great customer experiences through tailored and personalised content, ads, recommendations and even pricing.

But it could also be that customers will have complete control of their data and privacy in 20 years’ time, and this could change how businesses use data.

Companies will have to invest more in data privacy and security, and those who don’t will face severe consequences – and this in turn will have an impact on their overall success. If it comes to this, marketers will need to build trust between them and their customers, and always generate valuable and relevant content.

AR AND VR Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are emerging trends in digital marketing that have the potential to revolutionise it. While certain brands are already using it, these technologies will be commonplace over the next two decades.

The extent to which businesses can apply AR and VR in digital marketing is unimaginable. From using VR to test drive a car to being able to envision how furniture would look in your home, it can create immersive and interactive user experiences that enable customers to get up close and personal with a product or service even before a purchasing decision is made.

More interactive customer experiences could also lead to improved buyer awareness, better personalisation, and higher engagement and conversion rates.

INFORMATION The way people search for information is set to undergo a drastic change in the years to come. In recent years, there have been changes in the search landscape. We are now looking at a considerable increase in voice and visual searches from dominant text queries.

The increase in voice search can also be attributed to the rising popularity of voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa, and its convenience compared to typing a query. And with the increasing accuracy of voice recognition technology, voice search is set to dominate the search landscape and get bigger.

Therefore, marketers need to keep pace with it and optimise content for voice search to ensure that their products and services are easily discoverable.

Visual search is the ability to allow customers to search for products or content using images instead of text. This will also have a tremendous impact on digital marketing in the future. Visual search offers convenience and a great customer experience. It could also increase business leads and sales.

Digital marketing is accelerating at a rapid pace, and brands must keep up with the advancements and changes to set themselves apart from the competition and achieve success. Since creativity will always be king, digital marketers must strive to provide frictionless experiences, and strike the perfect balance between human and machine creativity, innovation and purpose, while remaining relevant and accurate.

In the last 20 years, we’ve gone from print media to television and subsequently, social media. One can only imagine what the next couple of decades will have in store for digital marketing. One thing’s for sure: digital marketing will help make life easier.

And yes, it’ll be a fascinating time to be in the field of digital marketing!

Digital marketing will help make life easier