It’s June 2018! We’re 18 years into the new millennium. Digital realm is engulfing the mankind in every aspect of our lives.

Traditional methods of marketing have taken the passenger seat and digital marketing is now in the driver’s seat.

Brands and businesses nowadays are trying to improve the ways in which they can reach out to their customers and potential customers through digital marketing across wide range of platforms and variety of channels.

With every passing day, the digital marketing world is evolving. With consumer having much shorter attention spans, less patience and more liberty to change one brand over other, it is going to make lot harder for marketers and brands to remain successful.

So if you are wondering how you can grab the attention of your target market and how to make the most out of your marketing dollars, here are 3 digital marketing trends you should watch out for in 2018.

1. Ephemeral Content

In the ever changing of digital marketing, there is no shortage of the new terms that keep popping up every other day. One such term is ‘ephemeral’ content, something we should watch out for and is a digital marketing trend you should follow in 2018.

We got familiarized with this term with the advent of Snapchat. Ephemeral content is basically any content that disappears and is not permanent in nature. The most common examples are Instagram stories and Snapchat stories.

While creating content that delivers massive value, कीपिंग इत timeless and engages users over a sustaining period of time is something the brands shouldn’t sacrifice on, the idea of ephemeral content is on the rise.

An increasing number of brands are now making use of ephemeral content as an integral part of their digital marketing strategy. One reason being it allows brands to remain natural and be their authentic self. It powerfully contributes to the “media storytelling” aspect without having too much to the permanent content.

The other reason why ephemeral content is an important 2018 marketing trend is that is now part of Instagram and Facebook. Both social media giants display it on top of the newsfeed, which is the crucial real-estate to claim especially when we face the grueling fact of declining consumer attention spans.

Having ephemeral content allows your brand to stay in front of your followers, fans, customers and your target market making it more easily accessible to them.

2. Chatbots

Advances in technology have given us Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning and big data. AI technology is making Chatbots more effective than ever. They no longer are the monotonous robotic programs the way they used to be. Rather, Chatbot programs have improved significantly and are much better at imitating real human interaction.

2017 saw many companies experiment and implement the latest Chatbots on their websites or mobile devices. Once such example is Progressive Insurance. I was playing around with their Chatbot insurance application. It was so responsive that I was able to get an auto insurance quote within 10-minutes after going through its messenger, mobile app Q&A process.

When it comes to the customer service, customer sign-ups or onboarding functions, chatbots are the new game in town.

The reason being it allows brands to expedite the response time and cater to the needs of impatient customers in a manner that feels like a real human interacting on the other end.

The other reason why Chatbots will remain an important digital marketing trend in 2018 because we’ll continue see the improvements in AI technology. While they are not perfect, they are becoming more efficient in dealing with customer service tasks leaving human customer service representatives to deal with sophisticated issues. Having said that, that time is not too distant in the future where we’ll see advanced AI programs will allow us to perform sophisticated tasks as well.

3. Influencer Marketing

While influencer marketing is not something that can be considered new anymore, it is still an important factor in the world of marketing. It is one of the digital marketing trends you should follow in 2018 because there is just so much more in the realm of influencer marketing which can be capitalized on by businesses all over the world across different industries.

Influencer marketing has become an important trend due to the credibility and the authenticity influencers possess over their tribes. When brands latch on to the influencers, it allows them to create instant connections with the authentic following influencers have.

Influencers are aware of this and with the popularity of this trend, they are becoming more selective in terms of which brands to work with. If marketing brand is not producing the kind of content their followers will engage with or is not keeping its brand promise, influencers risk losing their credibility not only with the brands they work with but also with their own followers.

Influencer marketing is not a new concept but it is certainly not going to take back-seat either in 2018 (or beyond) for the obvious reasons described above.

*Bonus- Another Digital Marketing Trend You Should Watch Out for in 2018

There is another digital marketing trend that deserves mention.

With the sales, marketing and purchasing activities getting performed through the mobile devices, the use of Augmented Reality (AR) is on the rise. Apple really set a new benchmark when they unveiled the iPhone 8 and iPhone X and made the experience of AR suddenly much more accessible.

AR is also catching steam with social media platform such as Snapchat where it introduced AR by allowing its users to project their Bitmoji avatars on to the real world through the camera on their app.

In fact, AR is something which has started to take hold on the broader level. As an example, the famous furniture brand such as IKEA has found good use of the AR technology by developing an app which allows the users to essentially place the furniture in their home before making the purchase to see how it will look beforehand.

What trends are you seeing that I haven’t covered here? Drop me a note below.

Happy Monday!

Blessings!

–Makarand