digitalTLooking at the Swiss full-service digital agency Namics’ predictions, we feel that we are on the right track with many of the trends we forecasted to gain momentum in 2019, including the following:

Augmented Reality Advertising

Looking at Snapchat filters, Pokemon Go or digital city guides, it becomes clear that Augmented Reality (AR) has already arrived in the daily lives of customers worldwide, Namics says. By putting the technology into the hands of professional brand communicators, who use it especially in social media marketing, gives the trends a boost. Facebook, for example, makes it easy for advertisers to implement augmented reality concepts with its AR Studio, and major corporations such as Audi and IKEA now regularly place their products and services directly into the living environment of potential buyers via augmented reality applications. That way, they extend the user experience with a personalized brand and product experience, like a virtual racing track or a corresponding showroom, that can lead to viral effects if combined with appropriate user interaction. The greater the entertainment value for the user, the greater the likelihood that the person will share the content with others.

Measurability in Content Marketing

Even though companies spend large amounts of money on the production of YouTube videos, the desired conversion, for example, a visit to the website or subscription to the newsletter, often can’t be achieved. Therefore, content should be measurable in order to avoid wasting resources, especially when created elaborately.

A prerequisite for measuring success in content marketing is a detailed content marketing strategy and a zero measurement, which means an inventory before the actual measures. The so-called content audit can be very helpful here as well, which documents e.g. whether a contribution fits to the target group, the editorial quality is right and, above all, whether the content pays for the business goals.

SEO for Voice Search

Siri, Alexa and Cortana are becoming increasingly popular with customers worldwide. The market research institute Comscore even suspects that by 2020 every second search query in the world will be made by voice. No wonder that the digital assistants are playing an increasingly important role for SEO. This is especially evident in the digital trend SEO for voice search and for marketing departments to proactively address this trend.

Quite apart from that, users are looking via language assistants now not only for information about brands and everyday issues, but also specifically for products and good deals for direct purchases on-site. This also explains the rise of the ROPO trend - Research Online, Purchase Offline. In the future, even the mood of the users should influence the search results: several companies are working on software that evaluates the pitch and mode of expression of the speaker and this way determines the user’s emotional state. If the user sounds calm and in a good mood, he/she is referred to inspirational content rather than mere factual collections.

Content that’s even more individualized

Personalized content remains a trend in marketing and the peak is far from being reached, yet. On the contrary: although technological development is already well advanced, many companies are only now beginning to exploit the full potential of segmentation. Not least due to increasing customer demands, individual content will become even more important in 2019.

The user wants to be picked up according to individual needs. Not only socio-demographic characteristics such as age, relationship status or gender play a role, the user and buying behavior on the website, the device used or external factors such as the weather are important segmentation factors. With flexible content management systems (CMS) and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) content can be optimally personalized and adapted to the user, the respective channel and the corresponding device. Automated A / B testing or tweeting or posting are just a few examples of AI's field of application. Especially when dealing with large amounts of data, the advantages of artificial intelligence are obvious.

By MediaBUZZ