Cox Business | Business Made Simple

Hot Marketing Trends for 2020

Marketing in 2020 is going to be challenging and exciting. Tomorrow’s marketing trends will be shaped by the millennial market and huge leaps in technology. Businesses need to keep their ear to the ground for the latest trends and leverage them quickly. By staying on top of the major developments that impact marketing, you can drive business growth.

Let’s explore three of the key trends that could arise in 2020 and guide your marketing strategies.

AR and VR in marketing

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology are now commonplace in business-user interactions. These technologies offer immersive experiences to users and enable people to interact with your products. Adding AR and VR tech can also build brand awareness for your business.

Very often, just the buzz around AR and VR can spike interest in your brand, making it more memorable. By adding AR and VR content, you can boost engagements that lead to greater conversions. There are several helpful use cases that illustrate how virtual and augmented reality can benefit your business.

Today, tools like Google Lens and Apple’s ARKit allow people to point their camera at an image and get data. Image recognition algorithms can identify an image, download information, and display it on a user’s screen.

Augmented reality in the beauty industry allows people to try on makeup virtually to see how it looks. Brands like Estée Lauder, Lancôme, and Sephora have created AR tools that let people try lipsticks and nail polishes virtually. In this way, users can be more confident about buying a product.

Ikea has launched the Ikea Place app with AR tech that enables users to virtually place furniture in their homes. It not only helps users feel more comfortable buying furniture online, but it’s also a fun experience.

Virtual reality is used

5 Ways Machine Learning Is Improving Manufacturing

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its subsets are benefitting tons of fields, but you’d be hard-pressed to find one that’s taking more advantage from them than the manufacturing sector. Major companies around the world are heavily investing in machine learning (ML) solutions across their manufacturing processes and seeing impressive results.

From bringing down labor costs and reducing downtime to increasing workforce productivity and overall production speed, AI – with the help of the Industrial Internet of Things – is ushering in the era of smart manufacturing. The numbers speak for themselves; recent estimates predict that the smart manufacturing market will grow at an annual rate of 12.5% between this year and next.

It certainly makes sense. Numerous businesses are already experiencing the advantages of ML in several ways and working with QA testing services to refine what they are getting out of it. Here are some examples of current implementations.

1. General process improvement

One of the first things that come to mind when thinking about ML-based solutions is how they can serve daily processes across the entire manufacturing cycle. By using this technology, manufacturers are able to detect all kinds of issues on their routine methods of production, from bottlenecks to unprofitable production lines.

By combining machine learning tools with the Industrial Internet of Things, companies are taking a deeper look into their logistics, inventory, assets and supply chain management. This brings high-value insights that uncover potential opportunities not just in the manufacturing process but in the packaging and distribution as well.

A great example of this can be found in the German conglomerate Siemens, which has been using neural networks to monitor its steel plants in search of potential problems that might be affecting its efficiency. Through a combination of sensors installed in its equipment and with the help

How Automation Can Improve Your Growth

Automation lets business owners accomplish repetitive tasks or gather large quantities of data.
Advanced AI systems merge these benefits by gathering data and using it to improve and streamline workflow.
40% of large businesses automate at least one business process, while twenty-five percent of small business owners report using automation.
Businesses that use automation can improve customer support, generate more leads, improve rapport with consumers and gather data for future campaigns.

Are you thinking about adding automation to your small business? If so, you’re not alone. Automation has a variety of excellent uses that make it a top tier tool for marketers, CEOs and customer support. There’s a reason that 40% of large businesses completely automate at least one of their business processes.

When we talk about automation, we are referring to a system that can perform repetitive tasks with little room for error. Generally, this system will either work off of manual programming, also known as “set it and forget it,” or makes use of artificial intelligence and can grow and improve based on repetitive interactions.

Business owners use automation in both of these ways to generate more leads to their business, improve their customer support, gather analytics data, and much more. Here are five ways you can use automation for explosive business growth.

Streamline customer support

The growth of online sales prompted businesses to improve their customer support channels. If someone buys a product from your store, they expect to have the option to talk to a representative if they want to know about the status of their order. Additionally, customer service is an excellent way to generate new leads for your business. Imagine if someone landed on your website and had some questions, but didn’t have the option to contact you. They would leave and never come

4 Ways to Create Valuable Expert Roundups

Quality link building is a crucial part of SEO and a key element for ranking your website atop Google search results. One strategy for effectively building organic traffic and links that direct to your website is to publish an expert roundup.

An expert roundup is a blog post that features a collection of quotes or interview answers contributed by a group of industry experts or niche influencers. Usually, the creator of a roundup reaches out to these people, who are authorities in their fields and can draw upon years of experience, and asks them one or two specific questions that they can easily answer. All insights that these experts share are combined and published in one single piece of content.

Expert roundups can be about almost any topic that interests a reading audience. While the subject may relate to a particular product or service, you should take educational in assembling the content. Be creative in selecting the most compelling topic. Assemble complementary perspectives that interlink to provide comprehensive together.

What are the benefits of using expert roundups?

Now that you understand what an expert roundup is, it is important to understand the benefits that come from incorporating this type of blog post into your content strategy

Increased traffic and social shares

Expert roundups often increase engagement and can create a viral effect, which may mean hundreds or even thousands of social media shares.

The secret here lies in the fact that many of the experts that participate in a roundup will share the content in which they are positioned prominently with their own followers. Since a roundup provides valuable insights from a diverse group of respected industry representatives, people are more willing to trust and follow the actionable advice provided therein.

The amount of traffic that a roundup attracts correlates

5 Ways to Attract Millennial Customers

If your business has yet to create a strategy that markets to millennial customers, then it’s neglecting a major component of its target audience. Millennials make up the second-largest generation in the U.S. after baby boomers. They’re expected to soon surpass the older generation as they continue to grow and make up a majority of the buyer’s market.

As their numbers increase, so does their buying power. The more you know this specific demographic of people, the easier it’ll be to market to them and give them what they want so your business succeeds.

Millennial consumers differ from the generations before them because they grew up with technology, go further in their education, and encourage diversity. Their buying practices more closely align with their connection to a brand and its reputation rather than choosing the first option.

Since there are so many cultural, economic and technological differences between millennials and the generations prior to them, it’s crucial for businesses to market with these differences in mind. If you plan on marketing to a millennial customer in the same way you’d sell to a baby boomer, for example, you’ll won’t have many of them shopping with you.

Since they make up a large portion of the buying market, your business must learn more about them if it’s going to generate sales, build brand awareness, collect leads, and much more.

There are five different ways your business can market to millennials more effectively, including: