Digital marketing is mostly about peer competition and staying ahead of the curve. While we saw several digital marketing trends expire and emerge in 2023, as we step into a new year in 2024 it is time to discuss what may be the up-and-coming digital marketing trends, how we can boost our business online, and methods and strategies for reaching new milestones in this realm.

Do you want to take a closer look at the top digital marketing trends to follow in 2024? Read on…

Digital Marketing Trends You Can’t Dismiss Next Year 

1. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)

When OpenAI introduced ChatGPT in the market, it took the world by storm. It truly was a revolution in the history of technology, problem-solving, and digital marketing – emerging like a knight in shining armor, offering an unbelievably effective yet free platform in comparison to all the paid tools that were already available. Generative AI like ChatGPT differs from other AI writing tools in the following ways: 

• Generative AI is adept at creating human-like copies that have a conversational tone. Trained on a diverse range of texts taken from the web, these giant language models are not only skilled at reading a scenario but also have the ability to understand the requirement and produce a response that best fits the said requirement. 
• Another quality that sets Generative AI apart is its ability to continue a conversation. As humans, when we are conversing with our counterparts and information is being fed to our brain constantly, our brain has the ability to remember the previous elements of the conversation despite being fed new information every second. AI can work in similar ways. 
• Generative AI also has the ability to learn in changing circumstances. While to be fair ChatGPT doesn’t update its knowledge in real-time since its knowledge is limited to January 2022 as of now, it does have the ability to adapt to the data you feed into it and customize responses based on previously fed threads of information. 

Naturally, Generative AI is here to stay, and it will remain one of the digital marketing trends in 2024. 

1. Virtual and Augmented Reality

VR and AR technologies are slowly entering the internet market with the Metaverse. To stay relevant and boost their sales, global brands must optimize their digital presence to provide a more immersive experience to their audiences. This will not only allow shoppers to interact with their services in a better way but also help them choose the best fit for themselves – creating a win-win situation. 

1. Voice-search Optimization 

Most people these days do not enter their search queries into the Google search box or Apple Safari to manually look up the information they require. Instead, voice search has made the process much easier and less time-consuming by helping users press on the voice search option and speak out their query to Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant.

This makes it increasingly important to optimize content in a way that can show up on these voice search results. How to do that? While several reasons can lead to your content appearing in search results, you can start simply by making your content straightforward and conversational. 

1. BIMI-enabled Email Marketing 

In 2023, Google presented BIMI users with a blue verified checkmark that appears as a badge of verification every time they send an email. This is a great way for users to make their emails look professional since BIMI-enabled logos will contain: 

1. Your unique brand logo is attached to every email sent from your BIMI-enabled domain
2. A blue tick alongside the sender’s name to verify their legitimacy 

To take advantage of this brilliant feature, here’s what you can do: 

1. Set up an SPF record for your domain 
2. Enable a DMARC policy of p=quarantine or p=reject 
3. Convert your BIMI logo to SVG Tiny 1.2 
4. Create and publish your BIMI record to configure the protocol

Once done, you may need to wait for a couple of hours to a few days for your DNS to save and process the changes. Following this, your emails will appear with your logo and a blue tick mark in Gmail inboxes. 

1. SEO and Link Building Will Stay Relevant 

In an attempt to cater to new and upcoming digital marketing trends, it is often easy to ignore the basics. However, it is important to invest your time, money, and efforts in Search engine optimization best practices.

Optimizing your content for the right keywords can help you get your content to rank better on search engines like Google, increasing your brand’s visibility including various assets on your website like blogs, webpages, videos, images, etc. 

Usually, SEO is aimed at targeting non-paid traffic sources also known as organic traffic from search results. This doesn’t include your paid searches and ads. 

Conclusion

Following digital marketing trends can really help set you apart and give you an edge over your competitors, however, it is crucial to understand that search engines always reward innovation.

Following trends blindly without adding your own touch to them, customizing them, or personalizing them according to your own goals and needs is a blunder most organizations seem to be making.

This, in the long run, will hinder your progress in the digital space and not add much value to your organization.