In today’s business landscape, CEOs and other business executives must be at least somewhat knowledgeable of technology trends. You’re not expected to be an expert – that’s what your Chief Technology Officer is for – but you do need to know enough to be able to effectively delegate the right tasks and formulate an actionable business plan that is based on hard data.
This requires a grounding in data science, data analysis, and how they apply to modern digital marketing. With each passing year, the importance of data analysis in revenue growth becomes more undeniable. While you will want to delegate some of the thornier data analysis projects to specialists on your team, you should understand the fundamentals.
No matter what industry or field your company is in, you need to have a grasp of analytics. These days, online courses can give you a crash course if you feel you’re lacking in your knowledge base. General Assembly reviews point out the need for not only data analytics but also product management and mobile development. These disciplines blend together sometimes and it’s important to be able to make distinctions.
Now that you know the value of data analysis in digital marketing, here are a few of the top trends that see these two fields converge:
Video marketing engagement
Video marketing is one of the hottest trends in social media this year, particularly on YouTube, Amazon, Facebook, and the Google search engine more generally. A huge majority of marketers say that social media videos increased their client base and conversion rates and statistics back this up.
Many business owners are intimidated by the specter of producing videos but the reality is these videos don’t need high production value. What’s more important than glossy production is knowing where and how to use the videos. For example, many marketers tap into YouTube’s video display ads, TrueView discovery ads, and TrueView Google Shopping ads. Story-driven pieces of content produce greater brand awareness and higher conversion rates.
On Facebook, another popular medium for video marketing, you can use in-stream video ads. On Amazon, you can leverage Enhanced Brand Content with video product ads.
Conversational marketing
Conversational marketing is not exclusive to 2020 but it’s gaining in popularity as a digital marketing strategy. One of the reasons fewer marketers have used conversational marketing in the past is because its contours are fairly vague.
The basic idea is building a bridge between brands and customers by personalizing the conversion process with targeted messaging. This can include chatbots that immediately engage people who visit your website, as well as active engagement on social media pages.
Open rates and clickthrough rates increase with personalized platforms that encourage interaction. This is also transforming customer service through the use of voice search and voice-based chatbots. Market analysts expect that we will soon see conversational ads served up by smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. This would seem to be the next logical step in conversational marketing.
Customer experience optimization
Customer experience, sometimes called CX, has been a big trend in 2020, as brands continue to compete to differentiate themselves in crowded marketplaces. CX uses analytic metrics like net promoter score (NPS) to calculate the digital word of mouth a brand enjoys.
A sub-trend in this field is known as “the flywheel,” which is a philosophy that states that the best way to generate and close leads is to make the customers’ experience as pleasant as possible. The brand must continually refine and improve its products, services, and digital content.
According to one business website, “the flywheel” can include marketing pipelines that use “on-demand webinar recordings, personalized nurture messages, cross-channel social video posts and more.”
These are just three of the data analytics and digital marketing trends from this year. Other trends include artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, multi-touch attribution, privacy and security measures (data protection), social proofs, personalization and customization, interactive content, sophisticated bid strategies, marketing automation, digital transformation (DX), server-side optimization and more.
