​Establish marketing and communication objectives - then use industry trends to execute them

Authored by: Idéle Prinsloo, Agency Lead, At That Point

Determining your business’ marketing and communications objectives for 2020 is central to any success you might achieve, however you run an extremely high risk of failing if your execution plan does not make provision for the important consumer and marketing trends predicted for the year ahead.

Rather than taking a “head-in-the-sand” approach, use these trends as your starting point to plan your products, services, campaigns etc. This enables you to devise an effective approach that actually “speaks to the people”. According to Trend Watching there are five main consumer trends that companies need to pay serious attention to in 2020, to ensure their relevance in an increasingly competitive environment.

Instead of feeling threatened, these should be regarded as promising business opportunities.

• Sustainable consumption: In the coming year, it is predicted that consumers will seek to alleviate their rising eco-shame by opting for products, services and experiences that will enable them to do so.
• Human brands: Brands that employ virtual characters and avatars will capture the attention of consumers. Reason being that this will enable a more human way of immersing yourself into digital channels. One such example is Chinese state news agency, Xinhau’s virtual news anchors. 
• Relevant service: Consumers will want services and experiences that constantly adapts according their ever-changing needs.
• Beating burnout: Continuous professional and personal pressures are leading to consumers seeking out the brands that can help them battle burnout, this lay bare an enormous opportunity for innovation.
• Non-toxic social media: Trend Watching states that “the benefits of social are being overwhelmed by bad actors and toxicity.” They anticipate this to result in consumers turning to smaller digital spaces that allow for meaningful connections.

With the above in mind, set up your next internal brainstorming meeting and discuss how you can get onto the proverbial “wagon” to reap the benefits of being in sync with your customers.

Marketing Trends in 2020
To give your company a further advantage, supplement your customer trend-focussed communication and marketing approach by ensuring you consider the below marketing trends that Forbes has identified for 2020:

• Conversational marketing: This refers to engaging with customers in real time, as opposed to them having to wait for a response. Historically this was executed telephonically or live chat support. However, the experts foresee artificial intelligence taking a more prominent seat in conversational marketing in 2020. 
• Voice search optimisation: Consumers are increasingly using voice search assistants like Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa and Bixby to answer their questions. Therefore, it will be critical to optimise your website for voice search in the year ahead.
• More Facebook ads: Those in the know say that considering Facebook’s maturing status as an advertising platform, they foresee the trend of budgets shifting from existing digital campaigns to Facebook continuing.
• Technical fluency: The importance of technical fluency will grow, and digital marketers will have to arm themselves with knowledge on things like search engine results pages, natural language processing, neural networks and machine learning. The important takeaway here is to make sure your content is optimised to answer searchers' most important questions.
• Data-driven storytelling: Using big data to help understand trends and hot topics to create engaging content, will accelerate going forward.

No more head in the sand, get in the know and ensure that all your communication and marketing objectives are realised in 2020.

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