Digital marketing has evolved drastically, and selling online is not as easy as it was just about 3-5 years back. As the Managing Director at Comval, a digital marketing and branding agency, I would like to give you clarity on the current trends and recommend a structured approach to increase your sales and ROI in business.
As the year
comes to a close, I would like to share my two cents on:
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‘AIO/GEO/AEO confusion’,
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‘Marketing automation’
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‘Data-driven analytics’,
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‘Hyper-personalization’,
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‘Social commerce trends’, and more.
The Industry Hasn’t Changed; It’s The Customers
Whenever there’s a new boom in technological advancement, or a completely new system emerges, it’s not the market that changes, but the customers’ habits and preferences.
For example, about 12 years ago, people felt grateful when their random queries got answered by Google, even if those answers weren’t as neat, polished and relevant as they are now.
Fast forward to 2020, and they seem to get really frustrated if even a single result doesn’t meet the search criteria.
Today,
however, things are way more complicated and expansive. Our audience is no
longer limited to Google. Moreover, SEO has diversified into AIO, GEO, AEO and
SXO - all of which hold equal significance in the search landscape.
So, Is SEO Counting Its Last Days?
I have been hearing this from many of my clients during initial consultations -
“What’s the need to do local SEO? Who reads blogs nowadays? Everyone is getting their answers from ChatGPT…”
I agree. SEO is no longer about Google ONLY. It’s about social media, video marketing, influencer marketing, AI and LLMs. But how to cover all these aspects in your digital marketing strategies?
If I have to give my answer in short, it will simply be - By meeting user intent.
Search Engine Optimization is not really ‘DEAD’. It has just become ‘Search Experience Optimization’. SXO It’s a blazing concept of omnichannel marketing that offers a seamless, consistent, positive search experience to all users.
Under this
concept, we have:
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AIO (AI
Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) - Optimizing
content to appear in AI tools and systems,
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AEO (Answer
Engine Optimization) - Providing direct, factual answers to long questions
asked by users via voice search.
If you
craft your marketing campaign involving these steps, you get to actually reach
your audience today. Conversion comes much later.
Automation In Marketing And Advertising
The pace of
today’s digital campaigns is decided by marketing automation.
Unlike
older days, it’s not the marketers who do all the targeting, placements and
budget allocations. Instead, we have smart systems using real-time data and
behavioural analytics to run productive experiments and distribute spendings.
Hyper-personalization involves accurate, predictive tools
to study buyer behaviour, their preferences and even in-app interactions to
predict purchase moves. Based on such AI-driven pattern recognition, we can now
plan and execute campaigns more successfully than ever.
People no longer scroll for fun. They engage, interact and even BUY on social media. So when a client said, “We need to work only on social media and build an engagement that’s impossible to miss”, I understood totally.
Social commerce now involves considering social media platforms as eCommerce portals, where people search and make purchases. But, you need to engage your social customers first with compelling, scroll-stopping content.
Another thing that I have come across is, ‘Our phones listen to us.’
One of my
clients expressed this in a fun way. I remember him saying, “It’s like,
you’re talking with a friend about a new product or service on chat and BOOM,
you get a display ad on the same the next time you’re browsing casually. It’s
almost my phone’s spying on me!”
I smiled and assured him that it’s not ‘spying’ but cross-platform retargeting. It’s a form of hyper-personalisation in advertisements based on user interactions, interests and browsing behaviour. With such ads, we can retarget and pursue people to buy stuff of their interests, even if they weren't exactly planning to.
The
Truth About AI And Content Marketing
For two years, we all have been experimenting and analysing the outcome of using AI to produce content. It started with creating 10-100s of pieces in bulk with one-line suggestions (or prompts). In a short span, the internet was crammed with meaningless, redundant content that didn’t meet user intent AT ALL.
Even when detailed prompts were used to produce content, it still didn’t sound (or read) as a well-researched, thought-provoking piece.
Google doesn’t seem to have any problem with AI-generated content as long as it satisfies the end users. But I feel that composing 100s of blogs using AI tools can never fulfil that criteria. Research is still a classic way to interpret what users are looking for, and how your competitors are meeting those requirements. Further, the content should also cover your experience, thoughts and perceptions to prove your authenticity in the respective field.
What Lies Beyond And How We Should Prepare
Strategic, data-driven digital marketing will evolve further in the coming days. We should be prepared to utilize emerging technologies, platforms and tools to expand our marketing game.
We are
already hit by a storm that’s going to last for a while (3-5 years at least).
With more Genz and millennials entering the online shopping landscape, our
strategies should align with their browsing habits, platform and tool
preferences. Only then will we be able to not only survive but ride the storm
with renewed confidence.