Hello everyone, welcome back to the Bilna Sandeep show. I am Bilna Sandeep, Managing Director of Built Market Lab and Growwie, a marketing agency based in Dubai and I’m also the founder of Homepreneurs Club, a women entrepreneurs networking platform based in UAE again. So today’s episode is quite exciting as we are delving into 2024.
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Impact of Artificial Intelligence
It’s just the start of the year and I know everybody is talking about what are the latest digital marketing trends for this year in 2024. It’s been a lot of discussions going on regarding artificial intelligence, there’s a lot of discussion going on video marketing, just like you can see me in a podcast because a lot of founders have moved to the podcasting and video editing and video series, right? I’m going to discuss about six digital marketing trends that you will start seeing in 2024 and how you can make use of these trends as a business owner for your business in 2024. So the very first topic that we are going to discuss about is artificial intelligence and how has artificial intelligence impacted the field of marketing.
In this whole year, I think most of you would have already started using ChatGPT for different purposes in your business. When ChatGPT started becoming really trending, everybody was saying, oh my god, it’s going to replace everybody’s jobs, it’s going to replace marketing agencies, it’s going to replace the jobs in marketing agencies. There’s a lot of confusion that started happening, right? But for me as a business owner, what I have seen is it is always about how you embrace a new technology that comes into the industry.
So for me, when I tell my team members, I am very particular that we have to be on top of the game, we have to research on what are the new tools that are coming up in the industry and we need to learn how to leverage these tools to make the best of it. Now with ChatGPT and with the artificial intelligence coming into picture, what has happened is that one person, maybe a content writer who’s been able to serve five clients at a time is now able to serve 10 clients at a time. So this has actually helped us become better at what we do because it has started saving us a lot of time.
There is of course, you cannot completely replace your works by an artificial intelligence yet. It might happen later on, but with what is available right now, there is a human touch that is required. It is all about what you feed into the artificial intelligence that gives you the right results.
So we train our team members on creating the right prompts for ChatGPT and how they can actually make use and get the best output out of it. Now before even ChatGPT was becoming so much popular, inside our agency we used to use a tool called jasper.ai. That was a paid platform and in that we were already using most of the functions that is available on ChatGPT and now that the ChatGPT became available, we started using more of ChatGPT. AI has been there for some time, but it is now that people have really started using it and there are so many other AI tools that are also coming into picture and that is going to make your life easier.
So always research for what is happening in your industry and what new tool that you can use to save your time and make your work more efficient. Now the second trend that I see that is happening a lot is the user generated content. For every brand, they are looking at having their customer reviews coming on their social media platforms.
User-Generated Content
They are sending their products to different users who can talk about their products and who can show the videos of how these products is being used. It’s also about co-creation and contests now. You might see a lot of brands running a lot of contests online on social media platforms so that they can generate more people or more user-generated content and they can get people to speak about their brands organically versus the paid ads.
Now the third trend that I want to talk about is the different marketing channels that you need to start focusing in 2024. Previously it always used to be about paid ads and spending more money on a platform and getting more results, but now it is a combination of different things that you do together that is going to increase your revenue or that is going to give you the best return on whatever you’re spending on your marketing. So now there is a huge trend that you will see that a lot of people are shifting to WhatsApp marketing.
It used to be quite common in India over the last year in 2023 and in different parts of the world, but now if you look at the UAE landscape, you see that a lot of people are moving into WhatsApp marketing. The use of WhatsApp API so that you can automate a lot of your sales process just by using WhatsApp chat boards. You will see a lot of the email marketing has now shifted more to WhatsApp marketing.
Diversification of Marketing Channels
Before it used to be you must be getting all these newsletters from all the brands that you’re subscribed to, all the big brands that you were subscribed to. You will still be getting them but you will also have noticed over the last few months that you are getting notifications and their newsletters are coming as WhatsApp now for you. So WhatsApp marketing is something that is going to blow up this industry soon and so as soon as possible you can also get into that bandwagon because most people look at their WhatsApps more than they look at their emails.
The other platforms that I see that is getting more popular in UAE is TikTok. A lot of brands have started creating more and more content on TikTok so that they can reach more audience through TikTok channels as well. Now the fourth point that I want to talk about is hyper-personalization.
Hyper-Personalization
So what does hyper-personalization mean? It is about creating content that is aligned with each user. So how do you do that right? Like every user or every customer or your prospective customer has different interests. So how do you communicate with them on different platforms like email marketing or WhatsApp marketing? It’s all about sending them the content that is relevant to them.
For example in WhatsApp marketing, you can integrate these in such a way that for example if you are an e-commerce brand selling mom and baby products so the moment you see that somebody has bought milk or baby formula you are going to integrate it in such a way that the next week when you send them a newsletter you are going to have an offer for a diaper right because you know that there is a baby in that family that would need diapers. So that is how you personalize your marketing content depending on the user behavior of each of your customers on your platform. The marketing is going to get more and more personalized and that is what is going to get you more results.
So this is one trend I see that is going to happen more in 2024. And the fifth trend that I want to talk about of course is video marketing. You must have already started noticing this change in the UAE landscape already.
Video Marketing
A lot of founders are getting on a podcast. A lot of podcasts are being produced in the UAE. There’s a lot of importance on the short-form content as well.
A lot of brands are creating 30-second to one-minute videos. You will see that every platform, every social media platform has started introducing a video option like on YouTube previously it used to be the horizontal video. Now you see there’s an option for you to upload the shots right because everyone wants to see those short videos be it informative, be it entertaining content but they do not have the time to spend a long time on your videos.
So create sharp and crisp content that can be from 30 seconds to one-minute long maximum and within that span, you need to grab the attention of your customers. It is about the right hooks you create on these videos and giving out the right kind of information that will help you gain a long-term customer or a long-term viewer for your audience. The last and final topic that I want to discuss is influencer marketing.
I know especially in the UAE landscape influencer marketing has been there for last for five years. It’s been a very strong marketing tool but now I can see there is a shift on moving to micro influencers more. It is about using more number of people.
Shift to Micro Influencers
They are more related to your UGC content, the user-generated content that we discussed in point number two. It’s about sending your products to a large number of group of people who might not have a huge following but are influencers in their own circles or in their own niches. So if you choose the right influencer that matches with your brand values it doesn’t have to be a mega influencer.
It can be micro-influencers having a following of less than 5000 people but it is about selecting those micro-influencers who have got a very niche following and very focused set of people who are following them and who you know that if they recommend a product to their audience is going to buy from them. So that is what I see another trend that is happening moving from mega to micro-influencers. Now for example, if you were using one or two mega influencers you are going to move to using maybe 20 to 30 maybe 50 or more than 50 micro influencers because it is about reaching the different communities that is relevant to your product.
So when you choose this micro influencer you are able to tap into their own communities of their audience and their following. So that is all from me. This is the 2024 trends that I expect to be happening more in marketing world and especially in the UAE landscape.
If you know of any other trends or if you predict there are something else that’s going to be coming up please feel free to leave those in the comments below so that our listeners will get more value from your comments as well. Do not forget to like, subscribe and comment on this video. Thank you so much.
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