Marketing trends are continually changing and evolving. If you want to stay ahead, it’s important to keep up with these changes and employ them in your own marketing strategy. Some of this knowledge might also be useful for your own clients!

This will help you differentiate your brand and contribute towards the overall growth of your business.

Here are ten 2020 marketing trends I picked out that I think are important to watch out for this year!

As the post grew very long, I’ve split it into 2 parts – 5 trends below and 5 coming up next! Stay tuned and subscribe to the newsletter and I’ll email you the moment Part 2 is published 🙂

I’ll also show you how you could implement them in your own marketing plan.

ONE: Use and learn about different formats of messaging

Marketing is growing increasingly complex. Consumers now use a multitude of different devices, browsers, and technology to find and consume information.

Within Facebook alone, there are at least 5 different formats of ads you can use to attract the right audiences.

You need to go beyond a single funnel (remember funnels?), integrate your marketing, make sure your online presence looks good and coherent on all customer touchpoints in all different formats, and adapt your marketing and advertising to an ever-demanding audience.

If you specialise in marketing campaigns and texts, this could also mean more opportunities for you, as there are more campaign texts to translate and transcreate – Facebook carousels, canvasses, posters, all different lengths of similar videos, different product videos targeted at different audiences – all these require correct transcreation!  

What you can do:

• Create marketing content in different formats for different audience groups, test different messaging, and different types of ads and approaches.
• Ensure all your marketing materials (CV, cover letter, LinkedIn, website, direct mail etc.) represent you in the best possible way. Someone might still be checking CVs only, but a lot of employers will check out your LinkedIn, website and social accounts as well.
• Use a mix of email approach, creative copy approach, and creative design approach to cater for audiences who consume information differently.
• Make sure your emails, PDFs, photos and website display well on all kinds of devices.
• If you specialise in marketing, this is your chance to get to know transcreation inside out, to show you understand digital marketing and are an asset to the client!

TWO: Implement an omnichannel approach to marketing

Omnichannel approach to marketing is a consumer-focused approach to improve a customer’s experience across all touchpoints. To make their journey smooth and satisfying regardless of where they communicate with us.

According to Market Research Future, the global omnichannel retail commerce platform is predicted to grow to $11.1 billion within the next three years. But it isn’t only retail businesses that can benefit from this innovative marketing approach.

So can service-based companies, like translators, interpreters, web designers or other freelancers. 

We’re in the perfect position to implement it. We don’t have large, complicated customer journeys and we don’t have to integrate 10 different complicated systems to do it.

What you can do:

• Build human, realistic and coherent connections between your online profiles, offline professional image and website: your LinkedIn profile and website, your email signature and LinkedIn profile, your Proz profile and website, and so on. Wherever they approach you – make sure they receive the same excellent customer experience.
• Make sure people see a coherent image and similar, integrated messages on different devices. Consistency in marketing is key.
• Offer a memorable customer experience, i.e. friendly and efficient customer service, compelling content, professional photography etc.
• Design an excellent customer journey and stick to it! (we have a module on that in LS Marketing Academy)

THREE: Adaptation of digital marketing is reaching maturity – evolve constantly

More people are using digital marketing and more people are becoming good at it. Generations who were born into the era of online are quickly growing up. Accept it, learn and innovate!

While researching LSM Academy modules for example, I still see a lot of untapped potential for marketing of translation companies and freelance translators.

From SEO optimisation of translation websites to email automation and the use of Google My Business or customer reviews, there are so many marketing strategies you can use to attract more clients that your competitors are still not using and in turn build a really successful business.

What you can do:

• Research your direct competition and make notes on what you can do better.
• Use SEO to optimise your website, blog posts, LinkedIn and online profiles.
• Write high quality content – insert plenty of relevant keywords, phrases and answer customers’ problems and questions – you will be rewarded.
• Create a Google My Business listing and start gathering reviews (works for certain specialisations better than others).
• Start gathering reviews on any platform, even if you don’t use GMB – there is no better trust indicator than customer testimonials and social proof!
• Differentiate with excellent customer experience (number 1 differentiator this year!).
• Try to automate your marketing and learn how to do it well for the long term.

FOUR: Do you talk to your phone or Alexa sometimes? Other people do too! Don’t forget voice search in SEO.

Search engine optimisation of your website and profiles always mattered. But because SEO rules always change, optimising your website accordingly and adopting the omnichannel SEO approach is extremely helpful in staying ahead.

For some keywords, in some languages and some language pairs, you can be hugely successful simply by employing SEO strategies, optimising your website and adding relevant articles with keywords and useful content. Especially with less popular language pairs.

But voice search is also becoming a big deal – especially in English.

Did you know that voice search will surpass 50% of all Google searches in 2020?

What you can do:

• Optimise your website and content, using phrases that people would verbally use to look for a translator (via voice search). For example, “Alexa, find a certified Italian translator in London”, or “Find an Italian translator near me”. Feel free to do a little field research at how other people would use voice search and write it down.
• Make your content easy to digest by crawlers so that Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and all other voice assistants can find you!

FIVE: Email is here to stay, but make it mobile-friendly!

Email marketing is still going strong. As of February 2019, the ROI of email marketing was 3,200%!

But there are always ways you can improve it and increase your chance of response and click through rates.

Did you know that 49% of emails are opened on mobile devices?

Lately, you’ve no doubt noticed the sudden decline of text-heavy, image-bulky emails appearing on your cell phone screen and the swift influx of refined, pixel-perfect emails and newsletters with clickable buttons and an easy-to-read format.  

This should be your goal for 2020 onwards.

What you can do:

• Optimise your emails and email signatures for mobile with readable designs, smaller amounts of text, and appropriately sized images. Less is more in email copy and design!
• Make sure the image on the first fold encourages further scrolling.
• Place your CTA button on the second fold – no later – to grab attention right away and prevent unnecessary scrolling.
• Include short, snappy copy that can be scanned on the go.
• Keep it simple – less is more!

Read more about email marketing in this post.

Part 2 coming up next week! Stay tuned for 5 more trends to watch out for and include in your translation business marketing in 2020.