Fall is here and the holidays are right around the corner. Soon, all the marketing boys and girls will be checking their numbers to see if they’ve been naughty or nice and before you know it — resolutions.
There will be the one or two that you break every year. You know this is the year you’ll start that video series finally. YouTube is calling your brand name in 2019, for sure. Maybe your resolution go-to is something simpler like keeping up with social media posts for more than just the first six months. Who knows, you might even lose a few pounds.
A new year is on the horizon. People either love or they hate the holidays. Some hate them because they make promises to themselves that they don’t keep. If that’s you, go into 2019 better informed than you’ve ever been. We are pulling out the WA crystal ball (Byron keeps it in a bowling bag under his bed — true story) to see what’s in your content marketing future next year.
There’s Gonna Be AI
Oh, yeah, if you are not a believer, 2019 might prove to be a rough one. Artificial intelligence is going to be predicting things like crazy online. The good news is your job just got easier. In 2018, AI was still in its infancy. In 2019, it gets all growed up.
AI-powered technology means:
- Better productivity
- Improved efficiency
- Enhanced targeting
- Expert trend analysis
- Automation, automation, automation
- On-point customer profiling
- Higher satisfaction ratings
AI takes that already growing world of customer-centric advertising and makes it bigger and better. George Jetson ain’t seen nothing like 2019.
AI and VR Become a Couple
Rumors have been flying all year, but in 2019, AI and VR go public. Virtual reality can add so much to the customer experience. As artificial intelligence and predictive advertising become more prominent in 2019, tech nerds will be tripping all over each other to come up with ways to mine the VR landscape for marketing gold. When the rush finally happens, grab your goggles and hold on because brands will be looking to get there fast.
Privacy Gets Some Respect, Finally
Even as the use of targeting grows, so will the cries for privacy. It’s a tough balancing act. The answer might be hyper-personalized experiences. Instead of stalking people from page to page on the internet with static ads, brands will look for ways to hyper-target consumers and create pages based on their user activity.
Let’s say you are tracking someone who visited a brand’s website to look at shoes. From there, they went to NASA’s page. Maybe the next time they go to your site, the background is a solar system. You can still throw out the occasional reminder ad to pull them back and then wow them with the personalized webpage. Nice.
Oh, Yeah, About That Voice Search
Seems like a theme every year and 2019 is no different. Optimize for voice search, friends. It’s here, and it’s not going anywhere. People much smarter than me are estimating that 50 percent of all searches in 2020 will start with someone saying, “Hey Siri” or “Hi, Alexa.” As appliances get more intelligent, so will voice recognition technology. The allure of being able to speak instead of type is just too powerful for most to ignore. If you only make one marketing resolution for 2019, this better be the one.
Learn the Value of the Micro-Moment
Really, ain’t nobody got time for that ad. People’s need for speed grows even more in 2019, so your need to provide it should, too. A micro marketing moment is how you razzle dazzle them in just a few seconds. And, when you only have a few seconds to get the brand message out, you better use them wisely:
- Be concise
- Be informative
- Be clear
If they need a second click to get the 411, you’ve lost them. It’s up to you, the marketing genius, to figure out exactly what information to provide, too. The typical end user is looking for one of four things:
- Information
- Directions
- Location
- Product facts
If you focus your micro-moments on delivering one of those four things, you’ll do fine, grasshopper.
Writers Like Me Will Take Over the World
Okay, I say that every year but 2019 might actually be when it happens. Traditional ads have been losing public favor for a few years now, and, at the same time, content has become more effective. Creativity is both the hook and net in all things marketing including blogs and articles. It’s what will set your brand apart from all the others.
In 2019, take your creativity to the next level not just in content, but in distribution tactics, channels, and factor in some native advertising. Learn to tell a story, find ways to make it personal, expand your mind while you keep it respectful and targeted at the same time.
2019 is the year of the pig — no, I didn’t make that up. It is also the year of VR, AI, VS and all other things glorious. It’s another year that we writers at WriterAccess will be around to help your brand grow, too. We can’t wait.
Darla F is a full-time freelance writer published internationally and an award-winning author. Over the last decade, she has ghostwritten memoirs for a successful entrepreneur and created byline pieces for USAToday, Jillian Michaels, USARiseUP, New York Times — About.com, Multibrief, MedCity News, LiveStrong and AOL. Darla is known for her ability to take complex topics and make them clear to anyone.
