Tech & Marketing Trends for 2019

26 Feb Tech & Marketing Trends for 2019

Posted at 17:11h in Blog, News by admin

We want you to get ahead of the game. That’s why we’ve prepared a summary of the technologies and marketing trends, you should be already implementing in your strategy so you don’t fall behind. Get ready, here we go.

The 10 year challenge in the tech and marketing industry

It’s amazing to think that 10 years ago platforms like Whatsapp, Uber, Airbnb, Instagram, GPS in Smartphones, Spotify, iPad, Google Chrome and so many others didn’t exist or where barely launching. Can you imagine a world, your world without them? Neither do I.

They’ve carved their way into our daily lives, and become a major part in our businesses operations.

Google Chrome today represents 71% of the browser market share, Instagram will be the second social media platform user adoption in the US in 2019, having 33.6% market share only superseded by Facebook (52.6%) and whatsapp has 1.5 billion active users monthly. Those are just a few mind blowing stats about today’s state of affairs, the list is neverending.

Enough history, lets jump into the future 10 year challenge of the technology and marketing industry.

Tech trend 1: Blockchain

The Blockchain is a decentralized database that involves unknown parties to exchange transactions directly without intermediaries in a safe, trust and transparent way.

Blockchain is the supporting technology of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

This tech had a rough 2018 in terms of market value, but is expected to rise once again this year due to its potential business applications in logistics, healthcare and several other industries. Even more you can implement smart contracts within the blockchain that diminish the need for intermediate subjective third parties to judge if the contract is fulfilled, instead all this happens automatically, trustfully and transparently for all parties.

The Blockchain is expected to create $3.1T in business value by 2030.

Cualit is applying this technology in Flet.ai, our logistic solution for small and medium enterprises that need to successfully pickup and deliver packages.

Tech trend 2: Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is becoming a commodity for developers, therefore expect to see a lot more applications of AI in games, robots, cars, drones, all the services you use online (such as Gmail, Dropbox etc) and more.

It’s mind blowing to think that only in the last two years, 90% of the worlds data has been generated.

By 2020 it’s expected that every person on earth will generate over 6 GB of data per hour (6.102 GB to be exact).

But where are we going to store all this information? How are we going to process it?

No wonder storage is becoming a key driver in online business models.

Even data scientists are unable to fully identify all possible hipotesis and patterns themselves, and are even less capable of analysing all branching scenarios.

Information volume has superseded the capabilities of data scientists, that’s why, according to Forbes AI is expected to automate more than 40% data scientists tasks by 2020.

We are applying AI in several services to provide a better experience for our customers. For more information take a look at our intelligent show recommendation service similar to Netflix powered with AI.

Tech trend 3: Edge Computing

No doubt cloud computing has revolutionized the way we operate today. But beware, the centralized model is not necessarily the only alternative any more.

Edge computing, a distributed model, has made its way through and is expected to make a statement this year.

It seeks to distribute the logic traditionally centralized in cloud services to smart devices in the edges of the network (also called nodes), hence its name Edge computing.

It’s primary objective is to minimize latency by moving information processing and analysis closer to the source.

The interesting part is that, not only information is being transported, but also the application’s logic. Edge comput89ing applications are going to disrupt the IoT experience, smart cities and much, much more.

If you want to learn more, take a look at our latest blog post about Edge Computing: https://www.cualit.com/edge-computing-the-future-of-data-processing-is-here/

Tech trend 4: Immersive Technologies

Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) are changing the way we interact with the world. For those of you who aren’t familiar with mixed reality, it adopts the best of both worlds and allows that virtual objects are anchored in the real world so that both worlds can interact with each other. Take a look at Microsoft Hololens or Magicleap for further applications.

This technologies have been around for several years now, but for 2019 and the next years we are expected to see more and more applications of them in smartphones, apps and wearables.

According to Gartner, by 2022, 70% of companies are expected to experiment with immersive technologies for both the final consumer and businesses, and 25% of them will be deployed in production.

To further emphasize the impact that this technologies have in the industry, keep in mind that for 2022 the market value of immersive technologies is expected to be worth over $178 billion.

We are applying immersive technologies in several projects to innovate and provide the riches experience possible for our customers. For more information take a look at the work we’ve done in PuntaAR with the Minister of Tourism and Liga de Fomento de Punta del Este.

Tech trend 5: Quantum computing

it is expected that by 2040 there won’t be enough power to supply all the computers in the world. We will soon be reaching the limits of energy and efficiency in traditional computing. Even more todays computers are unable to solve certain complex problems due to the time and energy it will involve.

Therefore the need to optimize computing as we know it has become more that urgent.

That is why giants like IBM and Google are redesigning computers in what are now known as quantum computers. This new bread of computers allows us to process information up to 1: times faster than traditional ones, thanks to the introduction of qbits (which store more information than just 1 and 0).

They will allow to solve computationally complex problems that otherwise today would be imposible, and change the world.

IBM has already announced the first commercial quantum computer in January 2019.

Marketing trend 1: The marketing funnel is shifting

In the traditional marketing funnel, anyone who enters is accepted despite their origin, and later forgotten. Today’s companies are changing this approach, leveraging in content marketing to attract audiences that are relevant to their niche instead of just anyone and nurturing long term relationships.

The traditional marketing funnel is changing towards the Flywheel.

The Marketing Funnel vs The Flywheel

The customer becomes the center of attention. Three stages are well defined and go go along with the customer journey: marketing (attract), sales (delight) and service (engage), the last one focusing on providing the best customer experience possible to promote customer loyalty and long term relationships.

The Funnel didn’t conceive that customers were loyal and recurring, therefore losing momentum and the opportunity to continue growing. Thus the Flywheel adopts the shape of a wheel that transmits the concept of momentum, timing and engine of growth.

Marketing trend 2: Content is everything

Content marketing is essential to build trust, generate brand awareness, rank better in Google, generate more quality leads, convert them into customers and encourage their loyalty with quality content.
In fact, content marketing generates 3 times more leads than ads paid on search engines. Moreover, 55% of marketers say that content marketing is their number one priority inbound marketing. We couldn’t agree more.

Marketing trend 3: Chatbots are here to chat

The benefits of chatbots are clear, time and money saving thanks to reduced repetitive labor costs (chatbots are expected to save $23 billion in salaries per year), 24/7 availability, quickly scale and support your customer service team, 100% customer service satisfaction thanks to chatbots always treating customers politely, and overall increased productivity thanks to automation.

No wonder why 80% of businesses want chatbots by 2020.

If you want to learn more about chatbots and its use cases, learn more about them in our blog post “Chatbots are the future”

Marketing trend 4: Voice interaction is heard loud and clear

With devices like Alexa and Google Home it is really easy to ask questions and buy things just by using your voice.
Reported sales for 2017 in US for voice devises was $1.8 trillion, and $40 trillion are projected for 2022. There’s no better time than today to get ahead of the game and prepare your services to interact with the voice.

Marketing trend 5: Video stands for more

90% of consumers watch company videos before making a purchase decision.

There are several creative ways to use video marketing this next years. Some of them are Vlogging or casual videos showing the culture of your organization, live videos, 360 videos and experiences with VR.

If you still doubt the power of video, take into account that 1 minute of video stands for 1.8 million words. No wonder why it’s the content king.

If you want to learn more about how to use video in your content marketing strategy, read our blog post “Just push play”.

Marketing trend 6: Micro influencing

The benefits of partnering with major social influencers like celebrities, actors etc. are notorious. But there are also downsides of this strategy: costs and credibility.

Brands are partnering with micro influencers, regular people that communicate the value of the brand with their peers. Communication feels much more natural therefore more credible, trustful and by far cheaper than a top influencer.

Marketing trend 7: Target generation Z through instagram

It’s no secret that Instagram is a hit with generations younger than 30 years old, and generation Z is not the exception. They are already entering the workforce, have buying power and therefore are a really attractive target for brands.

If you doubt instagram ad platform, take into consideration that it has generated approximately $7 billion in 2018.

Aim for the Z!