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The Future of Digital Marketing is REAL!

Digital marketing changes so fast you can barely keep tabs on what is happening. Compared to about ten years ago, you can agree that a lot has happened. This has left many wondering what the future holds for internet marketing and whether there will be any future to talk about. Will digital marketing still be relevant, say 15 or 20 years from now? The short answer is, yes. Digital marketing is very real and will only be more interesting in the future. In this guide, we explore some of the reasons why we think digital marketing has a bright future and what you should do to keep up.

5 Reasons Why the Future of Digital Marketing is Real

We can think of multiple reasons why digital marketing would still be highly relevant a century from now. Some of these reasons include:
  • The ever-growing number of internet users
  • Cost-effectiveness of digital marketing
  • The use of AI and augmented reality
  • The ability to measure results
  • The ability to get instant feedback from customers
Let’s look at these factors in more detail below.

More People Are Going Online

The number one reason why we think the future of digital marketing is very real is that more and more people are using the internet. According to reports from DataReportal, there are currently around 5.03 billion people on the internet globally. That is about 63.1% of the total world population! This presents a huge opportunity for the digital marketing landscape to grow. Brands can take advantage of this online audience to grow their businesses and reach even more people than they would have with traditional marketing. This means that even as we go into the future, more businesses will be going online to tap into ready markets. As a result, digital marketing will become even more robust.

Digital Marketing is Cheaper

Traditional marketing is very expensive. There is no doubt about that. Many marketers now agree that it is much more cost-effective to develop and run digital campaigns. For one, there are many free tools online you can use to create a digital campaign. This means you won’t be spending a lot on hiring graphic designers and paying for prints. The fact that digital marketing is more targeted also means that it has a higher ROI than traditional marketing. For this reason, more companies will be switching to digital marketing as they seek to strike a good balance between ad spending and profitability.

Digital Marketing Provides Higher Engagement

It is nearly impossible for users to engage with traditional marketing campaigns. This is where digital marketing wins big. Because of ad targeting, online users are more likely to see marketing material that they relate to. This means that they will likely engage with that material and potentially turn into a prospect. In fact, according to Lyf Marketing, more than 50% of marketers prefer digital marketing because of the higher levels of customer interactions. Social media marketing also allows consumers to directly interact with a brand through clicks likes, shares, and comments. Because of this high level of engagement, more brands and marketers will choose digital marketing, making it even more popular in the future.

Digital Marketing is More Measurable

Digital marketing provides a wealth of analytics that you can use to create more effective campaigns. There are many marketing tools that you can use to collect and analyze data in order to create more targeted marketing content. In other words, digital marketing lets you track your campaigns and measure results. This is hardly the case with traditional marketing where you create something, put it out there, and hope it meets the right people. By analyzing results and adjusting your marketing efforts, you play a more clear-sighted marketing game and get your money’s worth. This is one of the biggest reasons why we think more people will prefer digital marketing in the future as opposed to print, radio, or television marketing.

Digital Marketing Can Use AI

The future of digital marketing will potentially revolve around artificial intelligence (AI). This means that marketers will be able to create more targeted advertisements, increase engagement and create AI-generated content. AI can also be used to identify potential micro-influencers, collect critical customer relationship management (CRM) data, and bolster content marketing. By the fall of the decade, we will have even more powerful AI tools for digital marketers.

Future Digital Marketing Trends to Look Out For

As you can see, digital marketing will only be bigger and better in the future. This means that you need to start creating a future-proof digital marketing strategy, so you don’t get left behind. Below are some of the ways you can keep up with future digital marketing trends and practices.
  • Focus on voice search – Forbes estimates that 76% of American consumers are already using voice search to find information online. This will be even bigger in the future.
  • Use micro-influencers – Recent reports show that micro-influencers are becoming more effective than big celebrities and they could be the future of digital marketing.
  • Don’t forget video – Video marketing is going to be huge in the future. Focus on shorter videos for TikTok and Instagram reels because a lot of people seem to prefer them.
  • Tap into Augmented Reality – A huge percentage of companies will be using AR devices in the future to create more engaging marketing content and CRM technology.

Final Thoughts

It is no doubt that many companies are ditching traditional marketing for digital marketing. The digital marketing landscape is growing fast and will be even robust in the future. To keep up, make sure that you focus on voice and video marketing, work with micro-influencers, and incorporate augmented reality to tremendously boost your marketing efforts. Simply put, digital marketing has evolved from being just an add-on to now an “essential”. It’s the bread and butter of every business in 2022 that takes maximizing reach and conversions any seriously.
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Hassan Bawab, CEO of Magic Logix digital marketing agency, is a leader in cutting edge technology, digital marketing consultant and an innovative speaker/writer. He is the author of “How to Work with a Digital Marketing Agency” and has written numerous articles on automation technologies that have become industry dogmas.  Mr. Bawab holds degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics, Technical Writing and Marketing, in addition to several marketing and programming certifications.
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How Chatbots Revolutionize Enterprise Customer Service

Do you want to talk about the meaning of life, or are you interested in nuclear physics? (Do you want to increase your company’s revenue 100 times?) My name is Kate; I am a chatbot. I can help you with any question!

Chatbots still can’t consult with you on precise business strategies that will work, but they are close.

What are chatbots?

Chatbots (short for chat robot) are a computer program that maintains a conversation with a user in a natural, written or spoken language. A chatbot can understand the intent of the user. It sends a response based on data of the organization and the business rules.

Vivid examples of chatbots that recognize people’s speech are Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri.

A single chatbot can already give company departments a head start as it may gather data, analyze it, provide assistance with various issues and much more.

Studies show a whopping 80% of businesses want chatbots by 2020. That means that soon we will see launches of truly useful bots that will revolutionize the way in which companies do business and how consumers interact with enterprise services.

Which Chatbots Are Applied in Business

There are three main types of chatbots: Front End AI Powered chatbots, AI Assisted Human agents, and Human Assisted AI.

A Front End AI Powered bot 

is a conversational computer program that can interact directly with a customer without human intervention. These kinds of chatbots handle these queries like FAQs.

Front End AI Powered

However, there are some options for human assistance. First is upfront choice; it takes place when a client can choose from the very beginning to communicate with a person instead of chatting with the bot.

The second option is called human takeover — this is pretty similar to the option mentioned above. Every user starts to interact with a bot. But any user can request to talk to a human when a bot don’t know some specific things concerning the conversation. For example, when a chatbot cannot recognize a query it directs the message to a human.

An AI Assisted Human agent 

It is a human customer service representative who is supported by AI technology.

The idea behind bot assistance is that the users themselves never actually communicate with a bot. All questions that a customer asks are forwarded to human operators. The bot analyzes the content of each message from the user and distribute it through different organizational channels.

In enterprises, the bot decides which department or operator is best suited to take care of the inquiry.

A Human Assisted AI 

It is the natural evolution of the previous example. The primary decision maker here is the chatbot, but it is supported by a human. A system decides whether the issue can be resolved by a chatbot or if it needs human interaction by the defined level of confidence.

Human Assisted AI

Each message is analyzed and classified using Artificial Intelligence. If there is no information concerning the issue in the database, the system automatically redirects the message to a human operator.

When a bot have a low confidence it forwards the message to human operators — they review messages and send them out.

The disadvantage of this type of system is that a lot of operators should be available to shorten response time to a minimum, especially if the user thinks he or she is chatting with a bot. On the other hand, only a few operators are needed to supervise the bot.

How Chatbots Revolutionized Enterprise Customer Service

Chatbots can produce significant savings from a long-term perspective as they will contribute to cutting customer care costs by up to 29%, as BI Intelligence reports.

Customer service is one of the most resource-intensive departments in a company because the staff spends their day answering queries, gathering and analyzing information about customers, communicating with other departments, and much more.

It is a common knowledge that customer service chatbot changes the way people interact with service, but how, what are the functions and capacity?

Chatbots can provide customer relationship management

They can congratulate a customer on their birthday or ask how their son liked a T-shirt bought in your E-shop.

This type of relationship can increase customer loyalty.

Chatbots respond intelligently

They do and exclude the human factor (errors). When communicating with chatbots, there are no misconceptions — either a bot knows the answer, or it does not.

Gartner predicts that by 2020, customers will be able to manage 85% of their relationship with an enterprise without ever interacting with a human.

Chatbots are always online

This is a very important point because 50.6% of customers want to receive a response to their queries 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Chatbots can meet these customers’ expectations.

Chatbots can understand natural spoken language

Thereby customers can find any product they want faster and easier using voice search.

Let’s take Amazon’s Alexa, for example. People can now order a new computer with a simple order to Alexa while sitting at home and drinking coffee.

Amazon Alexa AI Assisted Human

According to a Google study conducted by Northstar Research, more than half of teens (ages 13–18) use voice search daily, and 41% of U.S. adults speak to their devices on a daily basis. The use of this technology is growing every day.

They can be integrated with E-commerce websites 

They can be  integrated with E-commerce websites so people won’t get lost on millions of web pages. When communicating with chatbots, customers have the ability to find everything they need concerning a particular product.

Moreover, a chatbot can analyze social media and take orders through Facebook Messenger and comments so that a company will not lose potential customers.

A survey by Facebook IQ found that 53% of people said they were more likely to shop with a business they could message directly.

They optimize and update themselves regularly thereby providing customers with the latest information and changes that were made on a website to which they are integrated.

A Glimpse Into The Future of Chatbots

Gartner provides some variants of potential chatbot usage for enterprises. Among them are the following:

  • Call center help desk. In the future, chatbots will potentially be able to reduce the number of help desk staff members. They will facilitate the handling of routine requests with automated responses.
  • Equipment diagnostic inventory management.

The integration of chatbots with Internet of Things technologies will give workers the ability to receive automatic notifications when a product is out of stock, for example, or if a delivery has arrived at its destination.

An Oracle survey shows that 48% of 800 surveyed executives and officials from France, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the UK said that they already employ chatbots and automation tools for their sales, marketing, and customer services, while 40% will implement automated technology by 2020.

Conclusions

We can definitely say that сhatbots are the future of enterprises. They have already been integrated with a huge number of E-commerce platforms at this time. They communicate with people on social networks and answer queries in search engines.

Chatbots have several advantages when used for customer service purposes. Among them are:

  1. Customer relationship management, which helps take care of every customer 24/7.
  2. Quick and intelligent response to queries, which may save customers’ time.
  3. Understanding of natural spoken language, which makes service available for customers wherever they want.
  4. Integration with E-commerce platforms, which makes shopping much easier for customers.
  5. Regular updates and optimization, which provide customers with the latest information.

All these benefits revolutionize the customer experience and result in increasing expectations towards the quality of a company’s customer service chatbot