Marketing is constantly evolving as technology, consumer behavior, and social issues change. To help brands stay ahead of the competition and deliver value to their customers, I have dusted off my crystal ball and predicted the seven most important marketing trends that will impact businesses in 2024.
2024 Marketing Trend: AI (Surprise!)
AI tools are multiplying and getting more sophisticated by the day. Smart brands will continue to embrace these tools to become more efficient, effective, and performant. It may also be time to look at upgrading to AI-enabled tools and platforms, like a new CMS that offers the ability to generate optimized meta-descriptions, an eComm platform that dynamically merchandizes your products based on search, or AI-optimized ad buys.
2024 Marketing Trend: Conversational Search
As we continue to adopt Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, and Co. to answer questions and perform tasks that were otherwise more manual, websites and content will need to be optimized for voice and text queries, using natural language, keywords, and structured data. Best practices for CSO (conversational search optimization) will continue to emerge over the next few months so make sure to stay updated on the details, as well as any emerging new ad formats that will pop up.
2024 Marketing Trend: Social Shopping
Social shopping is already a great way to reduce the online shopping journey by letting customers shop within the moment of discovery. In 2024, expect more platforms (TikTok Shop, Instagram Shopping, Pinterest, etc.) to reduce the friction even further by rolling out checkout capabilities within the social platform to more people in more countries. This will increase the convenience of buying, capitalize on impulsivity, and reduce the chances of cart abandonment.
Once you build your social shop on the platform(s) of choice, promote it by sharing relevant and appealing content, such as photos, videos, stories, reels, and live streams. And since 43% of Gen Z is searching and discovering new products on TikTok and Youtube, instead of Google, make sure to search engine optimize your shop the way you do your website to increase discoverability of your products.
2024 Marketing Trend: Influencers
Influencers aren’t going anywhere in 2024. They will continue to be one of the most trusted sources of information and recommendations for products and services for Gen Z. This year, deepen your relationships with your influencers, opting for longer and more meaningful collaborations and integrate them early and often in the planning phases of your campaigns.
Interested in learning more about influencer marketing? Read this.
2024 Marketing Trend: Ethical Marketing
Customers are becoming more aware and concerned about the social and environmental impact of their consumption choices. They are looking for brands that share their values and support causes that matter to them, such as sustainability, diversity, inclusion, and human rights. This year, promoting your brand’s values and responsibility in all marketing projects and actions will be a great way to build trust with your customers and could set your brand apart from the competition. It can mean reworking packaging to make them more environmentally friendly, making ads more diverse or inclusive, or adding ways to offset carbon emissions within the purchase journey.
2024 Marketing Trend: AR and VR
Virtual reality and augmented reality have been around for a few years now, but (save for some well-done filters in the beauty industry) the executions have often felt gimmicky and have failed to become mainstream. With the release of the Apple Vision Pro on February 2, the market is poised to be revolutionized. As virtual spaces (like the Metaverse) continue to gain momentum, look to explore new visibility opportunities.
Staying informed about trending marketing tactics is great for staying on top of the industry, but the best marketing strategies start with the basics: clear goals, well-defined target, and precise and effective messaging. If you already have those, layer on and experiment with new and different approaches, like those mentioned above. If you don’t, I can help with that! Contact me.
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