With the end of the year close at hand, we’re all reminiscing about the past few fiscal quarters and looking hopefully toward a new year of business growth and success. How can you make sure your hopes come to fruition? Keep your eye on these five hot marketing trends for valuable insights into how you can make 2019 your most prosperous year yet.
5 Marketing Trends to Take Off in 2019
(Image Provided by Google Support)
1. Google Showcase Shopping Ads Give New Direction to Broad Searches
Shoppers often start with an internet search to get an idea of what their options are for a given type of product or service. Because they don’t yet know much about their options, the search terms tend to be quite generalized (e.g. “bed sheets” or “women’s shoes”).
With potential buyers casting such wide search nets, it can be difficult for sellers to get the right products in front of them. A trending new type of Google ad is changing all that.
Just introduced in the fall of 2018, the increasingly popular Google Showcase Shopping ad format gives companies the opportunity to answer general searches with a curated selection of relevant goods in a convenient gallery format.
This gives consumers a better idea of their options with a given seller and increases the likelihood that at least one of the featured products will catch their eye. Showcase Shopping ads also give the seller control over the products shown as well as tools for tracking engagement and conversion.
2. Staying Social with Facebook Ads
If social media is an empire, Facebook almost certainly sits on the tallest throne. Perhaps the most ubiquitous example of how technology has changed the way we interact with one another, Facebook has an unprecedented number of monthly active users—roughly 2.27 million as of Q3 2018.
With all those users regularly checking their Facebook feeds, there’s a natural opportunity to have marketing content seen by just the right audiences.
One particular trend to watch for is the shift toward narrower target audiences. Because Facebook’s ad platform allows sellers to target very specific audiences based on their demographics, location, preferences, etc., businesses are now able to increase overall conversion by tailoring specific ads to smaller segments.
This strategy is likely to increase in popularity as businesses begin to further understand its advantages.
How can you jump in on this trend? Follow the examples of other companies, like the popular mobile shopping app Wish. Wish spends 100% of its advertising budget on Facebook and Instagram ads, which has resulted in quick growth and billions in sales.
3. Coming Soon: The New Face of Instagram Shopping
Also owned by Facebook, the photo-centric social media platform Instagram has provided sellers with a platform for in-app advertising.
Much like Facebook, these paid Instagram ads appear in-line on users’ Instagram feeds, bringing the content directly to the user. It doesn’t end there—Instagram has also revealed that they’re working on a standalone shopping app, currently known as IG Shopping.
The forthcoming IG Shopping app is likely to feature collections of products from various sellers that users can purchase directly in the app rather than redirecting them to an external merchant site like a standard ad would. It’s expected that this move would help boost conversion statistics (not to mention ease of use and customer satisfaction).
Other relevant marketing trends to watch are the increasing use of things like Instagram Stories and the app’s own streaming video platform, IGTV. Both features are being used by advertisers to create unique, interactive campaigns that are helping shape the future of content marketing.
4. Video Advertising Is Still a Major Player
The age of TV commercials is long past and web users have become (essentially) blind to banner ads. Online video ads, however, are a resilient and dynamic means of catching and holding people’s attention in a non-stop world.
Research shows that video marketing produces an increase in brand awareness of roughly 54% and brings in approximately 66% more qualified leads annually than non-video marketing.
Video is already playing a huge role in marketing, and the trend shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. In fact, over 76% of businesses reported solid results from video marketing in 2016.
As we move into Q1 of 2019, advertising is likely to continue using video quite heavily—and increasingly visual-driven consumers are likely to keep responding to it.
Whether the ads appear as sponsored videos on social media platforms or in conjunction with a streaming service, the flexible nature of video means companies can break out of the standard commercial structure and showcase products with things like tutorials, recipes, interviews, and more.
5. Content Is Marketing (and the Medium Is the Message)
As generations and shopping habits have shifted, marketing has begun trending away from being strictly “salesy,” moving instead toward a format that focuses on providing valuable content.
The seemingly counterintuitive tactic is yielding great results, too. A recent survey by the Content Marketing Institute revealed that 90% of the most successful B2B content marketers had made it a point to prioritize audience informational needs over their own sales messages.The nature of your content always has “baked-in” intent.
You could simply say “try our new sandwich” on social media, or you could share an infographic that explores its ingredients. The message is still “try our new sandwich,” but the medium says, “check out what’s in this—doesn’t that sound awesome?”
Similarly, a live Q&A session about a B2B service says you’re user-focused and more interested in having a conversation about its applications than giving a one-way sales pitch.
Here’s to a Prosperous 2019!
The five trends discussed here are just a few of the many interesting things to note if you want to stay ahead of the pack, but we hope these key insights have given you plenty to work with in the coming months.
No matter how small or ambitious your business plans for the next year may be, we hope the biggest trend you see is one of continuing success and prosperity. From all of us at National Positions, a very happy New Year to you and yours. We’ll see you in 2019!