The digital marketing landscape is constantly changing and adapting to the rapid advancements in technology and market conditions. In a fast-paced world, where the average attention span of a consumer lasts for a few seconds, marketers have to deal with conflicting and baffling consumer preferences and behaviours.

With trends like predictive analysis and data analytics automation ruling over every major industry, the digital and electronic marketing domain is not left behind. From the days of understanding “what is digital marketing” to leveraging the latest trends such as voice-search optimization and data-driven marketing, businesses have come a long way.

For any upcoming digital marketer, it is important to stay abreast of the latest trends in the domain. Read ahead to discover the top digital marketing trends that can help your business flourish in the modern world.

  1. Programmatic advertising: Programmatic advertising involves the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to automate advertisements in a bid to target specific audiences. The automation reduces the production costs and ensures higher lead conversions. This is why it is one of the most preferred strategies of digital marketers today. In fact, according to Statistica.com, the expenditure on programmatic advertising in Canada was around $2 billion, which is expected to rise even further in the future.
  2. Chatbots: You can expect chatbots to continue to be an important part of digital marketing campaigns across the world. Chatbots are created by AI for instant messaging and chatting with customers around the world at any point of time. Chatbots can revolutionise customer engagement as they are responsive at all hours, provide accurate and prompt answers and can recall your entire buying history. That’s why, The Innovation Enterprise predicts that they will power more than 85% of the customer services by 2021.
  3. Conversational marketing: Modern marketing tactics focus on relatability and informality rather than generic messages. Modern marketing is increasingly becoming conversational, and is paving the way for conversational marketing. This approach facilitates a real-time one-to-one connection of the marketing team with the customers. The main goal of this technique is enhancing customer experience through a feedback-driven model that fosters higher engagement.
  4. Personalization marketing: Haven’t you been bothered by cold callers who pester you to buy stuff you don’t need? Mercifully, the days of cold calling and generic emails are being replaced by more personalised content. Personalised marketing believes in adapting marketing campaigns to suit the tastes and preferences of the target audience. This trend is fast catching up industry players like Netflix and Starbucks personalize their recommendations as per your buying history.
  5. Video marketing: Video marketing will probably dominate the marketing domain for at least the next five to 10 years. Video marketing can help marketing teams ensure higher engagement while adapting to a gradual shift to mobile devices. Since people find video content more compelling, hence Google ranks those pages with video content higher than those which don’t.
  6. Influencer marketing: The Gen-Z and the millennial generations are being dominated by an era of digital influencers and vloggers. These are the people who provide expertise in different subjects and have large loyal audiences. Influencer marketing has gained traction only a few years back and is a type of word-of-mouth marketing that amplifies your brand message to the intended audience. According to a study by Mediakix, the global expenditure on influencer marketing can be expected to reach $10 billion by 2020.

Apart from these trends, there are several others like neuro-marketing and funnel marketing which are driving sales for many companies. Since the digital marketing strategy domain is extremely dynamic, you must make sure to be aware of all the latest trends in the market. An easy way of accomplishing that is by pursuing a course on the subject.

If you are looking for interesting courses on digital marketing, you can explore the Bachelor of Arts in Business Communication program offered by the University of Canada West. This course can expand your knowledge of the best practices in media and marketing. Click here to learn more about the course and start your marketing career in digital media.