As we approach the end of the year, it is an appropriate time to look where we are going and the marketing trends, we are likely to see more in 2020. Technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, so some of these trends focus on technology. However, there is also a trend against a greater digitalisation and automation of interactions between brands and consumers, and a desire making marketing more human again.

• Customer experience

2020 will be the year of the client. We see a massive change in beliefs about what marketing really is. It is no longer about convincing people to buy. The priority has moved towards providing a stunning customer experience that will make people come back for more. In a sense, when you focus on building a positive business culture and providing excellent service, marketing almost takes care of itself.

• Commitment to employees

If efficient and friendly service is the cornerstone of the excellent customer experience, how do you make sure to provide this? The answer, of course, is in the employees. 46% of consumers will leave a brand if their employees are not well informed, and the bad attitude of employees is the number one factor that prevents people from doing business with a company.

• Display

While advances in voice search influence the way we will create content now and, in the future, visual content should not be neglected either. Research has shown that people prefer visual content to plain text.

• Voice search

Voice Search shows no signs of slowing down and will remain an important influence on how brands create content and are sold online. We do not fully believe the prediction that 50% of searches will be performed by voice in 2020 (we are currently sitting at approximately 20% according to Google), but this statistic is probably not so far in the future. The smart speaker business is booming, with about a quarter of American homes owning a Google Home, Amazon Echo or other smart speaker.

• Live video

Live video is expected to move around 70 million dollars by 2021. Live video is incredibly popular among consumers, and people spend three times more time watching live videos than prerecorded videos. Video is also the most popular way for consumers to know new products. When the element is added live, it makes the video more attractive since the audience feels that it is part of it and can influence the content, rather than just looking passively.

• SERP Position Zero and featured fragments

SEO will continue to be an important aspect of digital marketing as we move towards 2020, but now we are seeing one of the most important changes in the SEO industry in the last decade.

With the mobile and voice search growth, people are changing the way they use search engines like Google. Being number one on the search engine or SERPS results pages is no longer necessarily the main objective your company should aim for.

You have probably noticed that your own search and navigation behavior has changed in recent years due to Google changes and the fact that you are looking for the fastest information when it is on the move.

Featured snippets and other information “in SERP” mean you no longer need to click on a website to get the information you’re looking for: it’s there on the Google search results page.

This information in SERP may appear in several places, but the most searched position is right at the top of the page, before the organic listings. This position has been called “zero position” As it is often the only information a search engine will see; it is highly coveted. More than 60% of the search results returned by Google are now zero-position search results.

Brands are still trying to figure out how to reach zero position, since it requires different SEO techniques than those used for a normal SERP list. If you can be the first in your sector to get there, you will have a great advantage over your competitors.