2019 Marketing Predictions: Responsiveness, Chatbots and Video

As another year comes to an end, many people in the eCommerce sphere are wondering what’s ahead for 2019. Over the last five years, it seems as though new technologies and strategies have risen to popularity only to be replaced by a different approach. Most of the latest trends in eCommerce marketing can be predicted by considering the methods that were popular the previous year.

Watching the evolution of these strategies can give unparalleled insight into what to expect for the future.

Here are Springbot’s top marketing predictions for 2019.

Responsive Design & Mobile Optimization Will Be Even More Important

User experience is the key to a successful eCommerce business. Think of your website as an actual, concrete store – you would want your store to be organized, easy to navigate and aesthetically pleasing. Capturing all three of these components in one website design can be tricky for those who are new to eCommerce, but it is essential to your business’ success and will continue to be a major factor for generating more sales.

Whether you’re just starting your own online store or you’re interested in giving your current site a reboot, hundreds of great eCommerce marketing companies exist to help you handle website creation, email campaigns and more. Find a business that emphasizes responsive design to ensure that your beautiful website appears exactly the same on every device.

Websites created with responsive design are able to adjust image and page sizes to any sized device, ensuring that the user is seeing the site exactly as it was intended to be seen. This is particularly helpful with the increasing number of mobile shoppers.

However, mobile shopping, also called mCommerce, is beginning to dominate the world of eCommerce, meaning business owners will continue to pay particularly close attention to their mobile site in the coming year. If you have a site with responsive design, you won’t need to focus so much on the mobile design itself but do investigate the mobile checkout process to see if you can make it even quicker and simpler.

Messenger Apps and Chatbots

When it comes to eCommerce, and the internet in general, people expect things to happen fast – a package delivered in two days, instant results for a mundane question, quick reactions on social media posts. This “culture of quick” we’ve created with our round-the-clock access to the web has led to the invention of new plugins designed to provide consumers with fast results. In the upcoming year, you may want to consider adding a messenger app or chatbot feature to your eCommerce site as these types of extensions will likely rise in popularity as more shoppers interact with them.

When shopping online, potential customers will often have questions about particular products or store policies, but they don’t want to waste time calling a customer service number, especially if there are wait times and additional questions from customer service reps. When you add a chatbot to your site, you allow your customers to ask simple questions and receive immediate answers.

Integrating Videos

Video is everywhere on the internet these days, and it’s predicted to only get bigger over time. We’ve progressed from consuming media as text to photos to video because it can help to put us into a scenario more easily, and it provides a real, three-dimensional sense to the shopping experience. In fact, 60 percent of consumers report that they prefer product videos over traditional product descriptions. More importantly, adding video content to your site can increase add-to-cart conversions by 37 percent.

Over the course of 2019, eCommerce companies should experiment with adding video into their marketing strategy if they haven’t already. Regardless of what your eCommerce business sells, you can benefit from integrating videos on your site.

If you sell electronics or particularly complex products, you can include how-to videos, demonstrating exactly how to operate and use the item. Another effective video strategy is creating real reviews by customers or incorporating YouTube links to shoppers who have created product reviews on their own.

Influencer Marketing

Shopping through social media channels is a fairly new marketing strategy, yet it has proven to be highly effective. When consumers receive advertisements that are specifically targeted to their interests, they are more easily convinced to make a purchase.

Aside from Instagram sponsored ads, a great way to spread your brand’s influence, boost conversions and attract organic traffic is through creating connections with other brand influencers. Popular social media accounts will promote your company’s products for a fee, which will expose your brand to the hundreds of thousands of followers these influencers often have.

With constant new developments in the industry occurring every day, 2019 is guaranteed to be a dynamic year for eCommerce businesses. To stay ahead of the competition, be sure to optimize your site for mobile users with responsive design and streamline the path to purchase with features like chatbots and engaging video content. That way, you can maximize your revenue and grow your brand presence online in the New Year.

Erika Jolly Brookes is the CMO at Springbot where she leads all brand, product and marketing campaigns and communications. Before joining Springbot, Erika was the vice president of product strategy for Oracle and vice president of marketing and communications at Vitrue. Previously, she held other executive-level marketing positions at leading technology companies like MindSpring, Earthlink and Rackspace. In her limited free time, you’ll find Erika running through Atlanta with her yellow Labrador, Charlie, or sharing marketing insights on Twitter: @ebrookes.

About Springbot

Springbot provides advanced eCommerce marketing technology for small to medium-sized retailers. We make the overwhelming task of running and tracking multi-channel marketing campaigns simple, from email and social marketing, to online ads, Amazon Marketplace and more. The key is Springbot’s integrations with BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify and WooCommerce to deliver the power of data management, marketing automation and analytics. We then take that information and make data-driven marketing recommendations specifically tailored for retailers’ needs. To learn more information about Springbot, please visit www.springbot.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and the Springbot blog.

We’re publishing email marketing predictions from the top minds in the field all December. Check out our blog for more.