Several digital marketers at around this time of the year put their proactive hats on to stay ahead of the competition. Most if not all successful Digital Marketers make regular active efforts to stay updated about the latest trends and tools for digital marketing. But still reading a list of yearly predictions for the upcoming new set of calendar pages seems to have become as customary for digital marketers as is reading horoscopes for the ordinary non-digitals!

While that may be a ritual for marketers and technicians around the world, but does anything apart from birthdays, anniversaries, taxes and financial reports move in equal calendar circles? The certainly do not. But nevertheless, some disruptive trends do surface out each year in the realm of digital marketing for the next couple of years that have a significant impact on most things.

So, here in this list (which is in no way an exhaustive one) we will dig into what trends to expect for the upcoming two years in digital media and marketing.

Predicting the future of Digital Marketing for 2019–2020:

In this post we will not just cover technical aspects but also throw a light on socio-economic and technological impacts of digital marketing.

1. Brand experience will be bigger than the product itself:

Customers will no longer be concerned about the product a company is offering but the whole experience with it and the brand itself. So, companies in the upcoming years of geared up competition will need to focus on how their services or products are helping to enhance the lifestyles or work needs of the customers.

The present legacy valuing of brands will be overtaken by brands that earn relevance with investments in collaboration and engagement during the times of need, which will be beyond creativity. Marketing hence will turn to CX, which will be built with disparate parts. The key constituents will include – marketing, support, sales, products, CRM and in-depth R&D. brands must also zero-in on the requirements, aspirations and values of the generation which will be the radical guiding force that defines everything of that time, which will be significantly different from the previous generations.

2. Impact of IoT on digital marketing:

It is of no doubt that the Internet of Things is exciting technology which if goes right will reward us with the utopia of convenience. It will also allow better data control by the users for the ‘digital refugees’ and the ‘digital natives’.

While it is still tough to say how, why and when marketers will be able to retrieve all this data, but one thing is for certain that customers will not give it away with some lucrative incentives.

3. Increased individualization:

Social media is one of the key aspects of digital marketing, and they are already recognizing the need for customizability and personalization among their user base. The major players like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are already offering their users with better control on what sort of content appear in their feeds, they have also been given the ability to change how their newsfeed operates.

The future only holds more customization power where users will not only be able to create their own systems but will also have personalized content provisions. They may also adapt intuition while on flight to provide the users what they are looking for by noting user patterns.

4. Augmentation of digital marketing with augmented reality:

AR or augmented reality will affect both traditional as well as digital marketing. And it can drastically improve how the marketers choose to interact with their target customers. But it should be noted that the emphasis remains on the term interaction and not necessarily pushing of branding messages. This technology is about providing the customers with the experience they desire at the very time and place which they have decided.

Only futuristic long term changes can be expected within the sector of digital marketing from Augmented Reality, with tech giants like Microsoft again taking charge with their innovations like the HoloLens, things will definitely witness a sharp upshot with jumps of wow-factors.

A few closing thoughts:

To summarize what to expect for the upcoming years in this ever-changing kingdom of digital marketing, here are a few statistical facts:

• More than 72% marketing professionals now believe that traditional marketing is no longer the most effective model taking into considerations the abrupt and constant changes in the digital marketing sector.
• Experts predict that by 2020, there will be 75 billion active devices in use worldwide.
• Video and mobiles will be at the core of customer engagement within the next 3 to 5 years.

Thus, it is evident that we are in the digital era, the only choice remains is to either adapt or stay a step behind in this changing tech-driven world.