Top 10 Digital Marketing Trends in India 2020 Post Covid – 19/ Corona Virus

By May 9, 2020August 5th, 2020CoronaVirus, Digital Marketing Trends

Digital Marketing Trends in India 2020 Post Covid – 19/ Corona Virus

While all the marketing pundits had predicted trends for digital marketing in 2020, The Corona Virus Pandemic has caused a major change in the digital transformation for all businesses.

To write this blog post differently, I have added MEMEs for each trend. I mean, how else do we communicate in these times. 🙂

Digital Marketing Trends in India- 2020 Post Covid - 19: Corona

It doesn’t matter what your company/ industry/ sector/ region is, or what products and services you offer – the evolution go the internet cannot be ignored.  While having a website and a Facebook/ Instagram page is all you needed to survive, today you need a strategy for each platform. Successful businesses need to be relevant to their audiences across all the digital touch-points. After all, Digital Darwinism is an unforgiving reality.

If you don’t adapt, you’ll surely go extinc………t.

TLDR: Digital Marketing Trends in India 2020 Post Covid – 19/ Corona Virus

1. Facebook 

2. Instagram  (the new go-to app)

3. Chatbots (Will Dominate Customer Service)

4. Video (Was and Always will remain KEY to telling your Brand Story)

5. Good Content Still Matters (and Now Context Matters More!)

6. Personalized Email 

7. AR/ VR and Interactive Content Will Become Mainstream

8. Voice

9. Push Notifications

10. Regional

1. Facebook 

Facebook is no longer the kingpin in the social media world. According to Forbes, 41% of its users are over the age of 65. While it is by no means struggling, it’s clear that Facebook is losing ground with the younger demographics, who tend to prefer the more visual, interactive experiences offered by Instagram, Snapchat, and the rising star, TikTok.

After the data breach scandal in 2018, Facebook has lost significant credibility, with many people growing frustrated and resentful with the platform’s proliferation of fake news, political propaganda, and cyberbullying. The once-dominant force is continuing to drop in popularity with younger demographics, with TechCrunch speculating that Facebook may be dead to Gen Z.

Facebook is still massive, when you start thinking the company monitors your whatsapp texts, instagram feed and comments, location tagging/ checkins and messenger conversations. Facebook also studies your interactions across websites where you shop with the pixel. With Facebook’s investment into RIL, Tier 2 and Tier 2 of the emerging indian market is facebook’s bet to generate ad revenue.

Digital marketing trends for 2020 - Facebook

2. Instagram  (the new go-to app)

Instagram has disrupted the e-commerce space let alone be a platform for content. It’s meteoric rise has already seen it pass one billion users, an impressive achievement. It is one of the most rapidly growing social media platforms. Most of its audience is especially under 30. Facebook has become the platform for an older demographic.

Influencers recently raised concerns with Instagram recently decided to remove the likes – however for any marketer the measurable metric should be engagement through shares or comments and or affiliate links that in turn show purchase/ brand lift. While it could lead to an uptick in content quality, many users may drift away from the platform in search of vanity metrics on YouTube and Ticktock.

Digital marketing trends for 2020 - Instagram

3. Chatbots (Will Dominate Customer Service)

Chatbots will evolve with the investments in AI and morph into your virtual “concierge” to get your users to the closest touchpoint where human intervention is needed. Humans are getting used to chatbots and chatbots are learning about humans – its a budding relationship and expect this relationship to only get stronger as we deep dive into data,  marketing funnels, and conversions. With 24-hour support, no cost of salaries and instant responses to customer queries, no need for breaks, vacations, or overtime pay. Facebook pages are helping educate the customers and contact forms have further evolved into chat bots. Chat bots are here to stay.

Digital marketing trends for 2020 - chatbots

4. Video (Was and Always will remain KEY to telling your Brand Story)

If your business isn’t already using video marketing, you should get on board this year before you go extinct. In a post corona world where human interaction is going to drop tremendously, text and images don’t stand a chance against video with the growing ADD in customers, especially when it comes to trying to sell products and services online.

Humans are watching more video than ever before, using smartphones to watch and share videos about everything, learning more about brands, and what they have to offer. Think about these stats from ImpactBND:

  • 70% of consumers have shared a brand’s video.
  • 52% of consumers claim that watching product videos makes them more confident and guides their online purchasing decisions.
  • 72% of businesses believe video content has improved their conversion rates.

Live streaming as annoying as it is becoming now, is a powerful method of digital marketing when combined with influencer marketing. Whether it’s the new generation of social media influencers or traditional sources, such as celebrities, athletes, and musicians, having a live stream with an influencer who is interacting directly with comments is a huge draw for an audience.

Twitch has over 15 million daily active users, most of whom tune in just to watch live streaming videos from influencers like Ninja. Arguably the world’s most popular gaming influencer, Ninja, recently signed an exclusive deal with Mixer, which was a power play by the Microsoft-company in recognition of the expected value of live video streaming in the year ahead.

Digital marketing trends for 2020 - video content

5. Good Content Still Matters (and Now Context Matters More!)

Content always was and will remain KING. A content strategy is at the heart of any marketing strategy. Google in 2016 announced micro moments and mapped customers on different stages of their journey developing a deeper, more sophisticated understanding of online content, and so, marketers must think carefully about their target market and how they can tailor content more precisely in 2020.

BERT was the big update, released on Google in November 2019 which uses intent as a ranking factor, but the major update pushed out on May 17, 2020 due to the corona virus has started impacted some sites more than others. Advice from Google is that “rather than chase the latest SEO trends, it’s more important to ensure a site has fast speeds, useful links, and well-written content.”

Make no mistake. Content marketing is going nowhere.

That being said, Google is getting smarter, and so are algorithms on social media platforms. Remember the last Facebook video you liked and how all of a sudden your newsfeed showed all video in the same genre, category?
Companies must keep this in mind as they create new content in 2020.

Digital marketing trends for 2020 - content

6. Personalized Email 

As digital led brands invest in data to get a better understanding of the customer/audience patterns to emerge and the more this purchase cycle gets fed into smart algorithms and prediction models, emails will be super customized and personalized going forward. The data the companies and brands will have for the customers is going to so accurate that a wring communication sent or a bad experience is something that won’t be accepted.  Emails can be specific to something specific, such as a user browsing a particular product, and then follow up with a promotional price or demo video in a personalized email, this can be very effective. Email is often the final trigger to motivate an action, especially when combined with your remarketing techniques.

That leads us to one of the most exciting digital marketing trends in recent times

7. AR/ VR and Interactive Content Will Become Mainstream

Interactive content is anything that people can click on, swipe, or interact with online.  With the lockdowns and WFH protocols, AR and VR will be the driving forces for experiencing brands.

More companies will experiment with interactive content types, such as:

  • Quizzes and polls
  • Augmented reality Videos
  • 360-degree videos

These formats leverage cutting-edge marketing technology, such as augmented reality and video content, to offer people a more immersive, engaging experience. With limitation on travel and human contact and the 5G revolution setting in – AR – VR will be definitely be game changers in the space.

8. Voice

Thanks to Siri, Google, Alexa, and a host of other ‘smart’ devices voice search or communication is continuing to rise. The real lesson for us is that people like to talk and that is a preferred way of interacting. And now, machines are finally catching up to the way people want to search, shop and discover new things.

However, this presents some interesting challenges. This for once changes the SEO logic of keywords. Conducting a voice search, for example, is very different from typing a query, particularly in the results. When a person performs a text-based search, the screen displays the results one page at a time. But when someone asks a device to conduct a search and the device replies verbally, it may only give a few choices at most, and frequently supplies just one choice.

Adopting a voice search strategy isn’t just about remaining relevant – it’s also about creating a unique and optimized customer experience that will foster relationships and build brand loyalty.

Marketers targeting voice search users should remember to write in a conversational tone, using keywords that people will speak rather than type. Doing this will help you get the coveted position zero or featured snippets on Google.

Digital marketing trends for 2020 - Voice

9. Push Notifications

Websites, apps, brands whatever you want to call it, will start pushing a lot more notifications on to your screen. From your smartphone to your laptop and your home TV, data is being collated. Smart TVs have the same log in details and in an age of multi-screens, brands are sure to send notifications out at each touchpoint to push you into the next marketing funnel. It was Swiggy and Tomato pushing notifications at lunch and dinner time on the onset, 2020 should see TV shoes, workout apps and even music apps send you notifications by studying your behavior patterns.

SSUP PAVALOV.

10. Regional

As the internet gets sent to the deeper parts of India, Regional languages and regional content will see a stark rise in constant consumption and creation. A quick search on youtube trending or twitter will easily show you the rise in trending topics that are not in English. India has had multiple regional languages and with data reaching the far corners, content diversity and personalization will also rise.

Digital Marketing Trends in India- 2020 Post Covid - 19: Corona - regional
Pushkarraj Mehta

Author Pushkarraj Mehta

Just a human talking to bots

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