As the world of technology evolves, marketing — particularly digital marketing — continues to evolve with it.
Just recently Microsoft announced plans to make artificial intelligence available to everyone in Africa through its 4Africa initiative. And once AI is widely available in Africa, it’ll transform the digital marketing landscape just like it already is elsewhere in the world.
Let’s take a closer look at AI and other tech trends set to change the world of marketing.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence makes data analysis more efficient for marketers so they can better understand customer behaviour and patterns. Rather than having to manually create various buyer personas, AI is programmed to learn everything it can about any specific individual and create a personalized experience tailed to that person.
As a result, marketers can provide hyper-personalization to their customers, which includes content personalization and unique, tailored buyer journeys. AI can also be used to find potential customers similar to existing customers and even read how warm a potential lead is.
Chatbots
Within five years, roughly 80% of business communications with customers will be performed through bot messengers. And by 2022, chatbots will help businesses save over $8 billion per year. Chatbots can be integrated with website, apps, and social media platforms to interact with customers and undertake customer service tasks — much faster than humans can.
They’re also given personalities and a sense of humor to make the experience realistic and enjoyable for the customer. Bots can also be used to promote features and offers, help consumers make purchases, and gather user information for marketers to use in marketing strategies.
Live video
Live video is set to be a predominant marketing method in 2019. Live video is more effective than written content alone — it gets right in the faces of consumers to advertise products or services. Infact, simply adding a video to an email boosts click-through rate by a staggering 200–300%, according to HubSpot.
As live video grows in popularity, however, marketers need to prioritize originality. Consumers are easily bored, so brands will need to turn to interactive video and imaginative video marketing to excite users and keep their attention.
These are the tech trends set to dominate the marketing world in 2019. But, ultimately, they’re largely still in the early stages of development. As the technology becomes increasingly complex and refined, it’ll continue to help marketers succeed in the highly-competitive and dynamic digital landscape.
