Brand Marketing Predictions For 2020

In this blog, we will be looking at a handful of Brand Marketing predictions for the year 2020. These predictions are likely to result in big shifts every marketer should look out for this year. Hence, if you wish to be at the top of your brand marketing game this year, you must proceed to read these insights from our Digital Marketing specialists. 

Strategies are said to work the best when one is clear about the foundation. Hence, before we proceed to discuss and scrutinize the Brand Marketing predictions for this year, let us learn a few basics of Brand Marketing. 

The scope of interpretation for the term “Brand” is wide. However, it is definitely a lot more than just an organization’s name or logo.  Though marketers hustle hard to establish their brand at the top in their domain, however, the irony remains that hardly anyone is able to disambiguate the meaning of “Brand” to their audiences.  

So, What Is A Brand?

Put in a nutshell, Brand is the identity of your business.  It is how people distinguish you from your contemporaries in the marketplace. For instance, if you see the logo of ‘Ferrari’, you are instantly able to relate it with premium sports vehicles. If you are visiting a showroom to purchase a ‘Ferrari’, you will be overcome with a sense of reliability that what you will get shall be the best in class. 

Hence, the brand steers recognition as well as reliability towards the asset (read product or services) of any organization. 

However, in recent years, brands have grown to become more versatile in nature. An influential brand should have the capability to align itself with the audience irrespective of the endorsement platforms.  Modern brand engulfs several aspects such as the identity of an organization, the quality of its offerings, and so much more. 

A business requires time, patience, and the right marketing strategies to evolve into a brand. Let us look at what role does Brand Marketing play in this process? 

What Is The Role Of Brand Marketing?

Brand Marketing is a combination of strategies through which products or services are marketed with a focus on the overall brand. It aims at linking a brand’s identity as well as values in interaction with its audiences. 

A well-recognized brand always serves as a bridge between its products and customers. Brand Marketing is not limited to generating sales by hoarding the audience with brand endorsements. It requires the marketer to focus on achieving goals that will benefit them in the longer run. 

Keeping these long-term goals in mind we are sharing with you a few Brand Marketing 2020 predictions that you should look out for. 

1. Podcasts Will Replace Blogs and Articles 

For the unversed, Podcasts are audio variants of all the blogs, video content, articles, and even shows at times. Users can download these audio files and listen to them at home, work, or while driving as per their convenience.  

There are several platforms that serve as a podcast hub for users.  Podcasts are usually in the form of mini-series that mostly revolve around the multiple facets of a single topic. 

So, coming back to the prediction, podcasts are witnessing a surge in popularity this year. A significant count of large business owners have started investing in the production of podcasts for a number of reasons out of which the most notable is greater returns. It will be only very soon that podcasts will carve a permanent rank for itself in every content marketing strategy and replace conventional content such as blogs and articles. 

Here, we are discussing a few advantages that a podcast can offer:

• Faster Production

A podcast is not just faster but also extremely convenient to produce. It can be recorded with a microphone and edited on a laptop in as short time as half-an-hour. This is relatively lot lesser than the amount of time and determination required to write a blog. 

• Easier Re-purposing

A podcast can be repurposed to a blog with the help of a transcription service. And, if you want to go a step ahead, use the script for recording a video. They are easier to process when compared to blogs or videos.  

• Enhanced Flexibility

Podcasts offer marketers with the leverage to cover any topic holistically given they are in the form of a series. Guest speakers can be interviewed on podcasts which always helps the creator to offer a multi-dimensional perspective to his audience. On the flip side, blogs are rigid.    

• Lesser Saturation

This is probably one of the most striking advantages of producing a podcast. When you search for a blog about a certain topic, the search engines are bombarded with results. However, that is not the case with podcasts. Given that podcasts are relatively newer in the industry,  the rate of their saturation is also very low, unlike their conventional counterparts.  Hence, investing in podcasts is also pragmatic if you are looking to gain higher visibility and optimize your reach to the audience.  

Ignoring blogs and articles, however, is not the wisest thing to do. They have been around for a significant amount of time. And, they are going to take some time to shed their dominance altogether. A good chunk of internet users still read blogs when browsing for a piece of content. 

Hence, to get the best results out of your content marketing strategy,  marketers need to pragmatically combine blogs, articles, and podcasts to reach out to their audiences and build a brand standing.  

2. Influencer Marketing Will Not Be Everybody’s Cup Of Tea

The cost to engage an influencer for the purpose of brand marketing is significantly high. The more bucks you can shell out, the bigger influencer you can engage, the more outreach you can gain. Hence, influencer marketing is an option for only those brands which already compete in the premium category in their domain. More humble brands will have to strive hard and resort to conventional methods to establish their brand and gain customer engagement. 

Moreover, influencer marketing is not suitable for every industry.  They are a rather pragmatic choice for content marketing. But, as far a brand marketing is concerned, influencer marketing does not work until you are engaging a very well known name in which case a considerable amount of your budget can get consumed.  

Nevertheless, those who can still engage influencers will continue doing so for the instant outreach it offers to a wide range audience.  

3. Direct – Response Advertising Price Will Surge 

Platforms such as Google and Facebook have been reigning the world of advertisements. They have infiltrated almost all the possible platforms for content media as well as content consumption. Their entire business models are based on advertisements for brands that want to reach out to their customers.  

And considering the sudden tailspin in the economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is going to be an imbalance in the supply and demand model surging the prices further. However, this might come forth as challenging for Facebook or even Google because there will be a significant number of brands that will be forced to optimize their expenditures in the platforms in light of the ongoing lockdown. 

4. Marketing Through Social Messaging Apps Will Increase

Gone are those days when Social Media messaging apps were meant for instant messaging, sharing memes, and getting in touch with your connections. They are set to play a significantly major role this year.  

Facebook is said to host 1.3 billion active users on its Messenger App each month. And, approximately 10 million messages are exchanged on the platform. With those figures in hand, most of us can determine the popularity of social messaging applications. 

Hence, companies should certainly shift their focus to direct messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger to endorse their products and reach out to customers.  These direct messaging apps can also help brands in offering a more personalized experience to their customers.  

By integrating technologies such as AI into these applications businesses can also enhance customer experience by responding to them in real time. And, a large section of people will prefer to interact with brands through. Besides enhancing customer experience, direct message marketing can also help brands to strengthen their hold on the awareness funnel of the buyer’s cycle, boost sales, and earn the loyalty of customers. 

5. More Brands Will Offer A Visual Search Experience

Everything that Google does sooner or later seems to become a fad. There are many brands that are catching up with the trend of offering a Visual Search experience to their customers simply because it enhances their experience. Some of the examples are Pinterest, Bing, and Cam Find.  Users can upload or scan an image to get drastically personalized results from the search engine. 

Visual Search feature seems to be widely utilized by online shoppers. It is not only intelligent but very accurate in generating personalized recommendations for the users.  

In fact, the Google Lens search engine is so versatile that it lets its users not only browse for products, but scan business cards and save contact details, scan books for getting a summary and reading reviews, learn historical facts about a landmark, scan plants and animals to learn about their names, and do so much more. 

This was our compilation of the Brand Marketing Predictions for the year 2020. It is said that “Change is the only constant” and we believe that we must all embrace changes gracefully.  These predictions were our attempt to help all you marketers to prepare for what is to come in the industry.  Adapting new trends and technologies will surely take you and your brand forward and carve a place for yourself in the market.  Brand marketing requires you to be dynamic.  Changes are a part and parcel of the marketing industry.  

Do let us know which of these predictions do you find the most useful and do not forget to share it with your colleagues in the industry. We will be waiting to hear how our predictions have helped you. Also, let us know in case we have missed out on any major predictions. We would be glad to receive your insight. Do share with us how you think the brand marketing industry is going to evolve this year.