It’s the close of the year and a time to look forward to what 2019 will have in store for the world of digital transformation and marketing automation. If you are new to the idea of marketing automation, it would be safe to say that it is something that you will be talking a lot about in the coming year. Marketing automation tools have already begun the journey of being easily applied to businesses of every kind and size. With the newer technology coming in, effective utilization of resources, scaling of businesses and the ability to bridge gaps between the departments of sales and marketing will be possible in several ways. If you are working on getting the most out of marketing automation for your company, these are the four trends you should know about.
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Integration of Cross-Channel Marketing
Most marketers have come to realize that a cross-channel marketing strategy is the way forward. Bringing together multi-channels of mobile and email marketing, as well as social media and content marketing ensures a seamless connection through them all and paves the way for user interaction on every form of media. This in turn will encourage a better engagement rate. Research has shown that multi-channel engagement helps with retaining a customer up to 89%. Return customers are always a good thing. Going forward, the focus will be on omni-channel development and hooking the customer at the right time and through the right medium. There will be an increased focus on budgets being allocated to the development of specific interaction channels and an integration system across them all.
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AI and Chatbot Technology Will Develop and Lead to Near Human-Like Interaction
Going forward it is all about analyzing user behavior and employing all the data that Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides to create better products and anticipate needs. AI works toward giving an organization the ability to make customer-oriented decisions. AI will be triggered to make suggestions based on audience preference of content. This will keep changing as your customer evolves. Email marketing can be automated to a large extent based on pre-defined triggers. Integrating AI with chatbots will be the necessary means to improving lead generation and customer retention.
Millennials are increasingly comfortable interacting with chatbots. In 2019, efforts will be on creating more human-like interactions with clients, with an integration of chatbots and AI. A new consumer will be emailed the low down on the organization and with details of how his personal journey can be, while a returning customer may be able to look forward to personalized follow-up post purchase, as well as new deals and discounts on a return visit.
Smart chatbox will play a major role in lead generation because of its ability to analyze a customer’s requirements and thereby create a personalized form of interaction. Research shows that more than 60% of users who have been pinged by a chatbot have engaged with it. With an AI integration, this percentage of interaction will increase. This year saw close to two billion messaging app users and the potential for this number to increase is quite high.
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Marketing Automation Will Take on the Demand for Personalized Content
The beauty of marketing automation is that every customer is treated as though they are the only ones. Personalized content is the key to the success of this and 2019 is going to be geared towards perfecting this ability. Data derived from observations on social listening, as well as individual customer behaviors, purchase history among others is going to help with the creation of personalized content. This can be upselling or cross-selling based on purchases and more. Tools to create the right kind of content are constantly being upgraded toward this end and 2019 will be the year for it.
Related: What’s better than marketing automation?
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2019 will be the Year of Predictive Lead Scoring
With behavioral data being the crux of personalized communication from a brand as well as development of interactive protocols, Predictive Lead Scoring as a tool will be the next step. This will help an organization examine factors such as behavioral data, in addition to demographics, relevant social information, and even the blogs published by a company. All of this comes together to create a score that will determine whether the lead that has come in is qualified or may be ignored. Qualified leads are what ensure that the right content reaches people and thus becomes useful in targeted marketing as well as one where demographics is key.
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