As 2019 comes to a close (HOW?!) the Crowd team have been sipping coffees and looking at 2020 with anticipation; what does the new year have in store for us and our clients?

Whilst we will spend the festive break gathering our thoughts and refuelling during a much deserved break, we thought we’d send out a roundup of the standout trends we expect to see impact the marketing strategies of any brands with a heart for innovation…

Shoppable Posts

One that we highlighted in last years trends article, shoppable posts on social media continue to grow and have already made a huge mark in shaping the consumer journey. You’re unlikely to know many who aren’t active on social, most people spending huge amounts of time on their favourite platforms. 72% of Instagram users have purchased a product on the app already, and a survey of more than 4,000 Pinterest users found that 70% use Pinterest to find new and interesting products.

Top platforms now offer brands the ability to reach target markets quickly, and with high quality, engaging content built on consumer expectations, shoppable posts are expected to be the norm in 2020.

Personalisation

With news feeds becoming even more congested and consumers now turning a blind eye to things they don’t care about, as well as traditional advertising becoming even less effective, the next step that will make the difference is personalisation. In a recent survey, 80% admitted they’d be more likely to give their business to a company that offered them a personalised experience.

Whether it’s automated personalised messaging or segmented email lists with personalised touches to catch the eye, these kinds of techniques will be what takes relationships with customers to the next level, allowing brands to build a loyal network and stand out from competitors.

Customer Service

Long waits on the phone and a million hoops to jump through until you get the help you need – that’s becoming less and less of an issue!

At the end of 2018 Crowd were experimenting with messenger platforms, testing new opportunities for our clients with our very own WhatsApp sign up. We were able to schedule thought provoking industry insights in the world of marketing and advertising directly to those who chose to sign up. Big stats, thoughts and opinions on what’s next, notable changes in innovation and some humour thrown in on top – a helpful source of knowledge for whoever was interested, whether business owners or marketeers.

We saw a huge influx of interest and large numbers of engagement that dwarfed that of more traditional outputs such as mailers, however, as is common in our world these things change at a rapid pace and the ability to tailor messages individually to a mass audience has since been adapted to a new angle for customer service. Brands can now choose to be contactable on WhatsApp, the most popular messenger platform in the world, by customers with any queries – a fast and direct funnel that puts an end to slow and frustrating phone calls or emails.

WhatsApp makes life easy through automation and allows teams to manage every conversation seamlessly in real-time.

Community Marketing

Another area we marked in 2018, this allows brands to drive affiliation through tailored spaces for their target markets to discuss common topics, ask and respond to questions, develop relationship and generally build a community indirectly around their product or services.

Social media groups, common meet-ups, WhatsApp… these are all fantastic opportunities to centralise conversations around what matters most, away from the busy news feeds of today. The brands that turn from one-way sales content and instead offer a genuine place to meet and talk about what their target markets care about will be the ones that thrive.

So those are 4 of our favourite trends that we expect to see develop over the coming year! There will of course be other areas to keep in mind, such as the prioritisation of data to put customers at the centre through 1st party data collection, further developments in the world of AI, even more of an increase in video; in particular live video, plus a growth in focus on insights driven techniques via data.

We’re excited! You should be too 🙂 Can we help? Give us a shout for a no obligation coffee and a chat…