Introduction
The marketing landscape and communication medium is constantly changing. And, these changes can help or hinder companies in their quest for market share. In most leading companies, the unexpected market shift is making it difficult for businesses to compete.
The 2010 to 2019 decade has resulted in numerous changes – from everyone having a smartphone to social media making us more connected. According to the phrase, “What got you here won’t get you there.” This means some major changes are on the horizon for the 2020 to 2030 years – changes that could lead to ultimate company success or failure.
Some of the changes that will be seen include image base search, voice search query and smart items. Another important change coming is that the competition base is going to eat away at profits. Brands will continue to gain market share since the competitive basis will be waning.
Voice Search
How people search for information is changing from physically entering a query to smart devices listening to your voice as input. It’s forecasted that, by 2020, half of all search-related queries will be voice-based such as Google Home Smart devices and Amazon Alexa.
This may intimidate and worry companies and brands, especially if they fail to optimize their sites and content. It means their existing customers may look to rivals for voice optimization queries. Voice search query is made up of long-tail keywords, much longer than the organic type base search.
Wonder how search voice is going to affect you? There are two ways in which this dynamic will unfold for local companies versus big geographical companies.
- Local businesses will need to optimize Google snippets for customers to read their website content. The local base query is generally longer tail searchers than broad searches.
- Bigger companies that sell services and products on major platforms can optimize individual products, services or categories. This will allow them to gain market share since some of the products will be Amazon or Google-recommended.
Image Search
Many companies are missing out on the benefit that image search can have. For example, people may turn to Google, Instagram or Pinterest images to find products they had no or little knowledge about. For example, you can take a picture of your products and post them on Pinterest. The site will then search for it and show people where they can buy the product.
Google, Instagram and Amazon are slowly introducing the options to use images to look for products and buy them. Image searches are more human-centric than writing texts, which means more people are likely to use the Internet to look for products.
One way brands are using images is via augmented reality. Instead of buying an outfit in stores or online that may or may not fit you, the technology was available to search for outfits that fit on your own body. For example, Amazon has patented a technology that will allow people to overlay outfits on their body when standing in front of a mirror. It won’t be long before others in the industry adopt the technology. This will allow you to test products before you buy them.
Virtual Personal Assistant
A huge communication shift for 2020 will be a digital personal assistant. This virtual assistant is like your own personal helper for both small and big digital jobs. Do you need to schedule a meeting, doctor’s appointment or something else? What if the assist could make these appointments for you? It sounds futuristic, but the 2020 year will make it a reality. An intelligent personal assistant will help you to carry out important tasks such as scheduling appointments.
Digital Twins
Another important aspect of the digital and service economy is having a digital representation of the item. Digital Twins is a virtual representation of physical objects with and without a sensor. The trend will push into the services and automation economies. How will this affect business?
An automated economy will enable intelligent items to interact with one another and people. This will help creative companies, brands and people to think outside the box, using the automated system to develop, deploy and ship out products. The technology is still new, but any organization can test out robotics and automated systems.
Intelligent Automated Objects and Robotics
A robotics and automated system will ensure that companies, brands and people will provide better products and services with efficiency. Now, you may be wondering what do automation and robotics have to do with your digital strategy. Keep in mind that an automated system and robots will become a part of everyday life, as they’ll be connected to the Internet.
Take, for instance, your digital mediums for advertising and communication. Or, if you’re out of food in your smart fridge, it can connect to a local retailer and order food via the Internet — the retailer then uses automation to deliver the food ordered.
This sounds all sci-fi, but this is the direction the economy is moving toward.
Data Availability and Price War
Companies and brands are making data more transparent for people to see. The changes in data availability are bringing about a price war between entities. The goal is to take short-term losses but gain a significant advantage over their competition. This can be done by coming up with a plan that will differentiate themselves from competitors that won’t affect the prices of their products and services. What will separate you from your competitors?
- Will it be technology?
- Will it be your service?
- Will it be your products?
It’s not enough to differentiate yourself from a competitor to let people know about your product and service. You also need to give them information about your company. If your company doesn’t have a great product but focuses on marketing, people will learn that you don’t deliver on your promises. If you deliver more value than competitors, people will learn of this. When you decide what to do about your product or service, you need to consider what information to provide to customers.
Can you benefit from giving your customers more information?
What Kind of Impact Will You Make In 2020?
What will be your competitive advantage that will make or break companies during the 2020s? This is especially true with the availability of data. Whether the data is good or bad, it leads to a vicious cycle. Companies will isolate events and not recognize how something goes back into other things.
For instance, how your employees treat customers can create an air of positivity or negativity, affecting you in other ways. If the biggest selling point of your company is having the best technology, then you need to constantly stay on top of the latest gadgets. If you fail to be the first to offer something new, it creates a negative outlook for customers.
Companies who focus on client success and happiness will need to always focus on what makes clients happy. This also includes the entry-level positions of a company who have interactions with customers. One bad event can ruin years and years of success.
