With 2018 drawn to a close, the digital marketing industry is about to receive a revamp. With an array of developments, updates and asymmetrical layouts, 2019 has a lot in store, but what about 2020?
GRO HQ made a fair amount of presumptions for 2018. We predicted a rise in voice search which is now one of the most rapidly adopted technologies in recent history and is changing the way consumers interact with the world around them. Video marketing was another one, we had high hopes for the visual aspects of marketing. Now, 72% of consumers would rather use a video to learn about a product or service. We also thought we’d see a rise in the use of geometric shapes, and now most brands incorporate geometrics into their design or logo. 80% of brands gain recognition because of colour or creative & eye-catching design.
Since we predicted the future of marketing last year it’s only right we do it this year as well, but with everyone focusing on 2019 trends, we’re going to step it up a notch. With 62% of companies now outsourcing their marketing, it’s important to stand out from your competitors with our 2020 marketing trends.
Design Trends
Three-dimensional work is everywhere at the minute. 3D design and typography rendered in 3D will continue to be big, such as paper effect illustrations and smooth plastic effect compositions.
We will also start to move away from rigid designs. Asymmetrical layouts will break away from traditional grid layout and provide a more bespoke feel, working particularly well in website design to draw the eye to a call to action.
Gradients or ‘colour transitions’ have been a well-recognised trend for the past few years. Duotones have creeped back into design with Spotify’s duotone playlist covers and Instagram’s iconic gradient. Gradients can make a logo seem younger & modern, and in 2020 the combination of block asymmetric shapes and gradients will become more popular.
Social Media Trends
With the world of social media constantly changing, there are numerous trends, ideas and unspoken rules. Social listening (monitoring) is the act of crawling the web & social media platforms to find all mentions of a brand or any keywords. This is a trend that is expected to grow in 2020 as it signals the interest of a product to providers.
Every year video content continues to grow, and this year it is expected to dominate. According to some experts, 80% of what we consume online will soon be video content.
Social Media Influencers have become a major trend in recent years. However, they have now grown in fame and prices for their services have skyrocketed. Micro-influencers have fewer followings than 10,000 people, but their followers are genuinely interested & very engaged, and are often much cheaper and down to earth. Their marketing potential is very high which is about to be recognised in 2020 or maybe earlier.
Content Trends
Augmented reality had a big year in 2016, however it’s still not popular or widespread enough for it to be categorised as a viable medium for content marketing. Now, all doubts about the technology’s future have been squashed and brands will be racing to be among the first to leverage this new medium.
Live video has become hugely popular over the last year, and therefore we can expect a lot of user attention in 2020 with more brands getting on board. In the next year live video will stabilize as an available means of communication, in higher demand in more places including search results.
As it stands currently, there’s a wide range of different-length content that can become popular. Short, medium and long posts all have their advantages. By 2020 we expect to see more polarisation towards content extremes, so people who want longer content will find the deepest, longest content available, whereas anyone who wants a fast read will only consume content in bite-sized chunks.
SEO Trends
For 2019, featured snippets and quick answers appear above organic & paid search results. They make up over 40% of all voice search results, which is known as ‘Position Zero’. By 2020 this is a figure that is expected to grow.
Search engine results pages (SERPs) are basically giant lists of web pages, so the more visibility you get there, the better. However, we’re starting to see different kinds of entries in SERPs and less exposure for websites in general. Knowledge Graph entries & rich answers are replacing traditional site entries, apps are rising in relevance and our digital assistants are parroting answers to us eliminating the need to review SERP.
Video optimisation is another aspect to think about. While your videos need to be engaging in order to rank on YouTube, they will need to be carefully optimised for selected keywords in order to rank successfully. By 2020 videos will become a magnet for 75% of all internet traffic, so it’s important to bear this in mind and stay ahead of the competition.
The GRO team are extremely excited to see how our marketing trends shift over the years. From 2018 to 2019 we saw such a change in marketing due to new developments like voice search, who knows what impressive new things 2020 has in store for us.
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