The digital marketing landscape is continuously evolving, presenting new opportunities for savvy franchise brands to grow, especially at the local level. Franchise Ramp is constantly innovating and proactively testing in order to ensure cutting-edge digital marketing strategies for our customers. It’s crucial that franchisees have experts to navigate their marketing strategy who are well-versed in both the digital marketing and franchising. Fortunately for you, Franchise Ramp offers the best of both worlds.
Here’s a list of the top 5 trends we’ve identified to take advantage of in the new decade.
1. Video Content
Video is the strongest and most effective means of spreading your marketing message. Take advantage of video content marketing in 2020, and leave your competitors in the dust. Don’t believe us? YouTube has turned into the second biggest search engine in the world. That’s right, not Bing or Yahoo, but YouTube is where people are searching on right after Google for everything. Recipes, product demos, how-to videos – you name it, they’re searching for it. Better yet, create emotional content to keep your audiences engaged longer. Live videos keep your audience watching three times longer than recorded ones.
2. Authentic/Native Style Marketing
Authentic style marketing matters now more than ever. Authenticity means honesty. Your audience can spot false advertising or a brand attempting to cash in on a trend from a mile away. According to one survey, 84 percent of customers trust online reviews as much as recommendations from friends. The closer to home, the better. Have satisfied customers record an honest video testimonial using their iPhone, use that! Honest testimonials from real people function as emotionally charged facts. Facts and logic alone cannot get us to the good of things. The good depends on the nature and situation of the people involved. The emotionally charged fact goes beyond knowledge of the subject and lets your customer know why your product or service is good for them. Using authentic style marketing is a sure way to ensure customer conversion and loyalty.
3. Interactive Content
Interactive content marketing involves using content to engage your audience based on their participation. Think of interactive content like a conversation with your potential customer- you’re just being a really good listener. Better yet, it encourages consumers to compete, compare, test themselves, consume information faster, and achieve results quicker.
Engaging your customers with micro-learning quizzes, surveys, or polls will ultimately catch attention, all while providing better data to optimize your buyer persona and your sales funnel.
4. Community over Status
With Instagram rolling out hidden likes, you’ll start seeing content trending towards promoting community and connection. It’s an encouraging and surprisingly wholesome trend we’ll be keeping our eye on in 2020. But how can you monetize this trend for your business? Keep in mind, all communication builds on events or follows events. So, almost all events in advertising are leading towards and following from celebrating what just happen (cue Black Friday promotions). When you think about your customer’s sales cycle in that way, it becomes a lot easier to built excitement towards an event. The more events your customer has to look forward to, the higher the chance they’ll identify as part of your community. Bottom line: Give them something to be proud of!
5. Chatbots
Data says chatbots will dominate too. According to a study out of LivePerson, only 19% of the 5,000 people surveyed had a negative perception of chatbots. Further, 33% had a positive view and 48% were indifferent so long as their problems were resolved. When you look at your email open rate, you’re probably sitting at around 4%. Chatbots can have CTRs ranging from 15%-60%, and even the lower end of that spectrum well surpasses the average email marketing CTR. A less obvious benefit that chatbots have over email marketing is that users have to provide very clear consent to receive messages. If a customer responds to a chatbox, they are clearly interested in your product or service.