2020 Inbound Marketing Trends Your Small Business Can Use

Every year, technology changes the way we do business. From 2010 to 2020, the online world has changed drastically, and businesses have gravitated to the digital environment for inbound marketing.

If you’re wondering how your small business can get a slice of the world wide web, consider using these inbound marketing trends for your 2020 strategy.

Chatbots and Direct Messaging

Automation has revolutionized small business practices in the latter part of the 2010s. It provides the opportunity to find a balance between managing customer expectations while focusing on high-value tasks within a company. Chatbots can be used to answer questions regarding shipping practices, hours of operation, and general inquiries to keep customers satisfied.

A developing inbound marketing strategy that companies have been employing for this decade is the use of direct messaging to reach customers. Rather than a customer using WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to reach out to an organization, businesses are using these mediums to secure a one-on-one audience with their followers. Using this method to inform followers of special deals is an effective way to improve campaign conversion rates.

Personalization and Hyper Targeting

In a world where mass messaging is the standard, personalization is what sets a business apart. Customers want to know that you value them as a unique individual rather than a broad target market. 

Using AI and machine learning, you can collect data and extract information about who your customer truly is. Discover their values, motivations, and purchasing themes. This information can be used to recommend other products or services they may like based on previous browsing and purchasing behaviors.

Video Marketing

SEO continues to be a top priority for inbound marketing efforts in 2020. However, the SEO landscape is changing. Consumers are engaging in smarter Google searching and have diminishing attention spans when it comes to content.

Video marketing is more accessible now than ever before. In the past, creating high-quality videos was a significant investment. With smartphones and affordable equipment, businesses can make videos on the go. Furthermore, the modern consumer likes the authenticity of a video that isn’t necessarily polished.

Use video embeds on your site to take advantage of the boosted SEO. You can also use live streaming to drive people to your website for an added effect. Many small business have success with Facebook live sessions to enhance their connection with their audience. Furthermore, up-and-coming social media platform TikTok is a largely untapped opportunity for video marketing efforts targeting Millennials and Gen Z. 

Micro-Moments

Micro-moments happen when a consumer feels an impulse and must satisfy it immediately. Many marketing efforts contribute to building awareness for when a micro-moment occurs. In other words, prospects may not need your business now, but you want to be at the forefront of their minds the moment that they do.

Four overarching desires drive Micro-moments: the need to buy, go, do or know. 

Building a strategy around being present when your customer is struck by the urge to know something or buy something is essential for 2020. Consider how you can develop content relevant to your customer’s future micro-moments, and reduce friction for easy instant sales.

Social Commerce

You no longer need to redirect your customers to a maze of websites to take part in e-commerce. Instead, you can complete transactions within Instagram. This approach to e-commerce is called social commerce and is an effective tie-in with micro-moments. Social commerce also blends well with the continued marketing success businesses are experiencing with influencers.

Shoppable posts make it easy to blend advertisements and transactions. Showcase your product in the best possible light with a shoppable post that reduces sales friction for social media users. 

User-Generated Content

Working with influencers will continue to be an effective inbound marketing strategy for 2020. However, an often overlooked stepping stone to working with an influencer is promoting user-generated content. Influencer marketing is going through a shift as well. Rather than working with large scale influencers with millions of followers, more businesses are exploring the opportunity of working with nano-influencers who have between 1,000-10,000 followers. These groups, like everyday social media users, have a more engaged and trusting following who values their insights.

Why reinvent the wheel when you can share real people using your product or service? Build a social media strategy around encouraging customers to post their own images that you can share. User-generated content is like a visual review and a reliable form of social proof. One survey showed that 90% of online shoppers made a purchasing decision based on user-generated content in 2017. As time goes by, that number will continue to grow.

Many of the most effective inbound marketing strategies in 2020 are small, targeted changes that yield big results, making them perfect for small businesses. Take advantage of accessible technology that was once reserved for the big companies and make your mark.