Listen to this articleIntroduction
The digital marketing landscape has changed drastically in the last few years; SEO, SEM, PPC, content marketing, and everything else that encompasses the digital marketing landscape, have witnessed a dramatic shift. The development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, Big Data, visual search, etc. has revolutionized traditional digital marketing methods. The Internet has become a place where every business is marketing to reach its customers online, and this easy access to the Internet has saturated the web with 1.8 billion websites. This huge number means that for every 4 people alive, there is 1 website on the Internet. This saturation of the web is a major reason behind the continuous technological advancements in digital marketing. These advancements have shaken digital marketing to its core and have significantly improved how marketing is done. Let’s dive deep into these advancements.
VOICE SEARCH
Siri, Alexa, Google OK, Cortana, and Amazon Echo are a few names that almost everybody is familiar with these days. These voice-recognizing devices are the technological advancements that have completely automated the way marketing is done online and changed the way people search for products or information. The thought of speaking into a smartphone to find the required information or product is in itself intriguing. The audience sitting online does not want to waste much time typing to look for something online and hence, prefers searching for it by speaking to the device. As a result, voice search has become the latest search pattern. This convenient technology is actively utilized all over the world and according to Gartner; about 30%2 of product searches will be done without a screen by the year 2020. This section will discuss in detail voice search, its impact on digital marketing, and the future.
What is voice search and how does it work?
Statistics show that every day, 3.5 billion searches3 are made on Google, out of which almost a third of the
searches are made via voice. Voice search is the voice recognition technology underlying different spoken dialog systems (SDS) that allow users to find relevant answers to spoken queries. The information is stored in large databases and the query made through voice command is compared with the fields in the database to obtain the relevant answers.
The voice search technology uses deep neural network (DNN) technology, which is modeled on languages and sounds. At the very beginning, the customer’s utterance is recognized using an automatic speech recognizer (ASR) and then, it is transcribed into text. After the recognition, an analysis of the speech received is done. It analyses whether the speech is a command or a question. After the identification is done, a connection to the search engines is created to get the most relevant answer to the query. Once the answer is obtained, it is translated into the required format and shared with the user.
Impact of voice search on digital marketing:-
Increased Brand Awareness and Strengthened Customer Loyalty- Voice search delivers answers to customer queries quickly, enabling customers to prefer the brand offering seamless interaction and saving their time and efforts. The ability of voice assistants to remember the customers’ past inquiries due to the leveraging of artificial intelligence (AI) and advances in natural language processing (NLP) has proved to deliver more relevant and useful information than a keyword search. NLP is the part of AI that enables the computer program to understand the human language as it is spoken. This strengthens customer loyalty and further leads to word of mouth as satisfied customers then share their experiences on the social network.
Enabled New Form of Selling:-
Voice recognition device such as Alexa already has a few built-in sales features that are getting better with time. The best example of this is the Alexa feature created by Domino’s, which enables customers to quickly and easily order their favorite pizza without even using their smartphones. The user can launch Dominoes by speaking into the device, which then connects the users with the pizza brand’s AI personality Dom, who allows them to place the pizza order. This has increased the brand’s customer database as it enables the customers to quickly place an order just by speaking. So, voice search has brought in a new form of advertising that satisfies the needs and queries of customers within a few seconds.
Improved B2B Sales:-
Voice search technology is quickly transforming enterprises, improving internal communication, driving B2B sales, and also enabling companies to connect with international companies using translation features. B2B sales are a little complex but voice technology carries the potential to provide the buyer with required answers with just voice interaction, reducing the friction in the buying process. It saves the time of the buyer and improves sales as the buyer no more has to go through a series of prompts and menus to configure the desired product.
Improved Customer Experience:-
By taking lesser time than text-based software to interact with the customers, and being more natural and seamless, the voice interactions have enhanced the overall customer experience. Many brands have incorporated voice search in their marketing strategy to target busy customers and provide them with a stellar experience. For example, Whirlpool has collaborated with Amazon for creating intelligent and voice-activated appliances that actively converse with customers, answer their queries, and guide them.
Future of voice search
It is predicted that by 2020, 50% of online searches will be done via voice search. It is hence on its path to becoming the dominant search method. Responses are expected to become more and more personalized in the future based on the past pattern of voice interactions. Voice interaction with cars, lamps, washing machines, etc. will soon become a reality. There have been more advancements apart from voice search, and companies are using newer ways to interact with customers and enhance their experience.
BEACON TECHNOLOGY
With the launch of iBeacon technology by Apple in the year 2013, Beacons have been creating a buzz. The Beacon technology has been changing the way companies are interacting with their customers and this technology is expected to grow in the future. According to the predictions by Global Market Insights, Beacon technology is expected to surpass $25 billion by the year 2024. Beacons are small wireless transmitters that use low-energy Bluetooth technology to transmit signals to nearby smart devices. This technology has enabled marketers to do proximity marketing.
How does this technology work?
Beacons are small computers consisting of a CPU, batteries, and a radio, which work by repeatedly broadcasting out an identifier. The identifier is a unique ID number, which is recognized by the smartphone as unique to the Beacon. As Beacons are a part of the indoor positioning system, proximity technology is used by them to detect a human presence in the proximity and neighboring area and transmit set actions to them. Whenever a customer walks in or near the place where the indoor positioning system has been set, the smartphone is detected by the Beacon and it sends a code with a message via Bluetooth to the detected smartphone. The messages received by smartphones can only be seen with a mobile app. Some of the popular mobile apps are the iBeacon app, an indoor navigation app, and an Eddystone app.
Things required for using Beacon technology:
1. At least one Beacon device
2. A mobile app such as Apple iBeacon, Google Eddystone, etc.
3. User’s permission
Benefits of beacon technology in digital marketing:-
1. Effective Out-of-Store Marketing – The main selling point of the Beacon technology is its ability to deliver all the information marketers want to extend to the existing and potential customers within the range of the Beacon. The message can be a simple alert letting the customers know that they are nearby the shop or letting them know about the discounts, loyalty programs, and competitions the shop is running. This location-based technology enables marketers to personalize out-of-store marketing.
2. Detailed Data Gathering – Beacon technology makes it possible for marketers to gather detailed information about which section of the shop is more engaging to the customers. This data can be used to improve product listings and in-store layouts. The data analysis can help marketers to refine the customer experience, tailor marketing campaigns, and improve the in-store conversion rate.
3. Improves Customer Experience – Beacons personalize the customer experience through targeted ads and improve the overall shopping experience. Targeted ads and offers from favorite brands also build trust, familiarity, and loyalty among customers.
4. Improved Google My Business Listing – If one has a Beacon installed in their business, it will help improve their Google My Business listing. Beacon helps track popular visiting times to one’s locations, which improves the accuracy of data shown in the listing. Beacon also enables one to request users to upload photos of the venue and helps one gather more data on check-ins done at one’s venue.
An updated listing is vital for local SEO. Hence, using a Beacon can help one’s Google My Business listing to stand out
from the others. Beacon technology is still relatively fresh, but the possibilities of this technology in proximity marketing and location-based marketing are enormous. Marketers can leverage the data received through the Beacons and utilize it to improve the business.
BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY
Blockchain can be understood as a public ledger that is shared among all the users, and everyone can access it. It’s stored in a configuration similar to a chain, and the transactions are stored in a block-wise manner, which cannot be changed, it can only be built upon. The digital ledger becomes decentralized as it is saved on millions of computers around the world. This is exactly the opposite of a bank where transaction history is stored privately. It has no central authority regulating it.
When people think of blockchain, they can only think about cryptocurrencies. But blockchain has many more applications than just the financial world. Blockchain is much more than just Bitcoin. This technology will affect the digital marketing landscape as well. Key features of blockchain:
●Blockchain has no central point; everything is the same for all users.
●The ledger is unchangeable, which offers very high cybersecurity.
●No entity owns or regulates the blockchain as a whole.
Challenges faced in digital marketing:-
In today’s digital marketing landscape, users, advertisers, and publishers face a lot of challenges because of middlemen, trackers, and fraudsters. Ads tend to decrease the battery life of users by 21%, and almost 50% of a user’s mobile data is used by the advertisements. Many times, advertisers are unaware of where their money is going, and they get easily fooled by fraudulent websites. Facebook and Google together combine for 73% of all the money spent on ads. This is the major problem being faced by the publishers. All these factors have made more than 600 million users use Adblockers. The environment in digital marketing is not ideal for its users, advertisers, and publishers, and it needs a solution.
SOLUTION: BLOCKCHAIN DIGITAL ADVERTISING
The digital marketing landscape is one of the major areas that are going to get disrupted by blockchain technology. Blockchain technology will take digital marketing ahead with even more accuracy in personalization and enable marketers to achieve one-to-one interactions.
Benefits of blockchain technology in digital marketing:-
1- The Disappearance of Middlemen in Digital Marketing- In the past, marketers used to depend on middlemen for any kind of transactions made and even for the launch of ad campaigns. But with blockchain technology, we do not have to be dependent on them as blockchain makes use of the peer-to-peer model and not the old server-client model.
2- Transparency- Blockchain technology conceals the identity of a user using high-end cryptography, which means that linking the public addresses to any specific user is practically impossible. The question that now comes up is how can blockchain be considered truly transparent. Blockchain’s transparency lies in the fact that all the transactions of each and every public address are open. With the help of some explorers, and knowing the user’s public address, the holdings, and the transactions can be viewed. This degree of transparency has never been experienced with the financial systems earlier and blockchain now adds a level of accountability.
3- Consumers Get Control of Their Information- Blockchain technology provides an alternate way, which moves the ownership of data back to the user’s hand. It is a decentralized database where data is replicated across numerous unrelated nodes. Any single node cannot act as a gatekeeper and take control of your data. Users who put information on the blockchain gain access to it through encryption keys, not depending on the service or application that was used to generate the data. This enables artists and musicians to promote themselves directly to the audience without giving any authority to some middleman platform such as SoundCloud or Facebook. Consumers can even start charging for their personal contact information and their attention using blockchain technology. This could eventually lead to marketers paying users to watch their ads in the future. This way, marketers will continuously be challenged to improve their interactions’ value and content quality. Blockchain has the potential to eliminate the gatekeepers of online media and advertising. It can revolutionize everything from currency exchanges to governance itself.
For example-
Baby ghost and VeChain:- Babyghost is a fashion brand and VeChain is a service provider that uses blockchain technology to verify if an item is authentic or not. Baby ghost and VeChain partnered up so that customers could scan the tag of a product from Babyghost and know if it is genuine or not using the VeChain service. They could even see the story behind the particular product of where it came from, and see all the checkpoints involved in the manufacturing of the product. This created a one-of-a-kind feeling attached to each product and increased the trust in customers while creating a personal connection with the product and brand. This way blockchain can be used for authentic advertising that doesn’t even look like marketing. Blockchain is bound to change the way brands interact with their customers. Nurturing relations with the customers will be the focus of the future.
