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Published on Nov 9, 2018

Effective planning for the future means having clear insight into the technologies, behaviours, and consumer expectations that will define the coming year.

Digital trends that will impact digital strategies in the near future:

• Voice search: A Force to reckon...
• Multimedia content: Video is essential
• Augmented reality: On the rise
• Personalisation: and more of it

1. Voice search: A force to reckon...
   The year 2017 crystallised the important and influence of conversational interface. Acceptance and adoption of connected speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home was impressive and all the signs indicate that this conversational interface is going to grow rapidly in the year. Data published by eMarketer estimates that 24.5 million connected speakers will ship by the end of the year and pegs the U.S. household penetration at 13.8% by the end of 2018. Adoption of connected speakers means that a growing number of U.S. households are being introduced to the voice assistants that power these devices.
   Voice assistants and chat-bots are poised to have a significant impact on the way users engage with information on the web. From purely search perspective, voice assistants mean that users are presented with a single correct answer to their query, eliminating the multiple options presented via text-based search. Content marketers will have to start adapting strategies to focus on this new way of searching if they hope to compete in an increasingly voice driven landscape.
   More and more people will use the conversational method and get accustomed to it. Retailers, shopping websites and other commerce ventures will be put in pressure to adapt to this and people will begin to expect machines to do all the sorting, sifting and selection of products based on the user’s preference.
2. Multimedia content: Video is essential.
   By now most brands are aware that the state of digital marketing is something of a content race. Creating quality content is absolutely essential in order to succeed in digital marketing, however, everybody churning out content will dilute the essence of the digital content and it may not work in anybody’s favour. A multimedia approach to content is necessary if a brand’s content has to stand apart from the competition. Videos are a core element of that multimedia strategy.
   Time spent viewing videos on digital devices is growing every year, and it is projected to be 1:22 per day on average in 2018 (eMarketer). For younger generations, digital video viewership is the norm, with 90% of millennial watching digital videos at least once per month. A handful of social feature launches -- Facebook Live and Instagram Stories -- in the past year have helped hasten the spread of video content.
   All of this indicates a demand for quality video content and an increased opportunity for video advertising. In fact, eMarketer estimates that video ad spending will reach $15.2 billion in 2018, an increase of roughly 16.5% from previous year. In 2018 many brands will look for opportunities to create more engaging and authentic video content and some will look to incorporate video as part of their advertising strategies
3. Augmented reality (AR): On the rise.
   AR is the technology that super imposes a computer generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. Rapid adoption of mobiles and usage of the in-built camera has paved the way to making AR accessible to a majority of the users, and that puts brands in the position of taking advantage of AR to connect with consumers in lot of new ways.
   2017 saw the launch of a handful of high-profile AR projects and collaborations. In September Swedish giant, IKEA launched IKEA Place. IKEA Place is an app built on Apple’s ARKit, a framework that allows developers to build augmented reality apps for iPhone and iPad. With IKEA Place consumers can see how furniture and home decor will look in their home by selecting a product and holding up their phone to their surroundings.
   Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARcore are making it easier for developers to bring augmented reality apps to the market. This will lead to an increase in the number of AR apps available and encourage user experimentation with the technology. In 2018 brands should be looking for opportunities to use AR to improve customer experience in innumerable ways.
4. Personalisation: On the rise.
   Personalisation was here and will still remain the top trend in coming year. According to survey data published by eMarketer, Business community says personalization gives them a 10-20% sales lift.
   Despite the fact that personalisation has been here for long it is still the most sort after strategies. According to eMarketer, only 6% of marketers claim that their personalization initiatives are - advanced, versus 56% who say theirs are - in process, 28% who are just starting out.
   Personalization has already become the norm. Spotify creates music playlists based on each consumers listening behaviour on the platform. Google uses our past searches to predict what we’ll want to know next. Netflix crunches viewing data to give us options in specific genres that it already knows we like. Today’s digital users are accustomed to personalized experiences, and they have begun to demand the same experience from all the brands that they shop and do business with

Key Takeaways

We can certainly expect exciting things in coming year. While brands wouldn’t necessarily go all out and invest in these technologies and changes everything at once, it’s important to stay on top of industry predictions and this are some of the trends that will become the norm.