In today’s rapidly evolving digital marketing landscape, staying ahead of trends and leveraging advanced technology are paramount for success. To explore these subjects in-depth, we had the pleasure of interviewing Nsongurua Abasiakara, a digital marketing lead at 9 Payment Service Bank (9PSB). With over six years of experience, particularly in FinTech startups, Nsongurua has driven growth through excellent campaign executions, brand storytelling, and digital strategies. Her insights on current trends and the technological impact on digital marketing are invaluable for businesses aiming to thrive in this dynamic environment.
Nsongurua highlighted some of the key trends shaping the digital marketing landscape today. She noted that personalized experiences are now a customer expectation, which means businesses must focus on targeted content, tailored offers, and customized communication based on data analytics. Video content has maintained its immense popularity, with platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram Reels playing a significant role in driving engagement and brand awareness. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has further transformed the industry, particularly through voice search optimization, with increasing use of voice assistants like Siri and Alexa prompting businesses to optimize their content and SEO strategies accordingly. AI and machine learning are also being employed for data analysis, automation, chatbots for customer service, and predictive analytics to enhance marketing strategies and decision-making.
Another growing trend is ephemeral content, such as Stories on Instagram and Snapchat, which is gaining traction due to its authenticity and urgency. Influencer marketing continues to be significant, with brands collaborating with influencers to reach niche audiences and build trust and credibility, especially on social media platforms. Furthermore, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are increasingly being leveraged for interactive experiences, product visualization, and immersive storytelling to engage customers in novel ways.
Discussing the importance of content marketing, Nsongurua emphasized that it is crucial for building brand awareness by establishing a business’s identity, values, and expertise within their industry. High-quality content allows businesses to showcase their unique selling propositions (USPs) and differentiate themselves from competitors. Additionally, valuable and relevant content attracts organic traffic through search engines, social media shares, backlinks from other sites, and word-of-mouth referrals. This traffic can be further nurtured into leads and conversions. Content marketing also provides an opportunity to educate and inform potential customers about products, services, industry trends, best practices, and solutions to their problems, thereby building trust and credibility, and fostering stronger relationships with customers.
Nsongurua also underscored the importance of effective social media strategies for businesses. These strategies start with defining clear goals and objectives, whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, or improving customer engagement. Understanding the target audience’s demographics, preferences, and behavior on social media platforms is crucial for creating content that resonates with them and drives engagement. Businesses should focus on the social media platforms where their target audience is most active and maintain a consistent brand voice, tone, and visual identity across all channels to build brand recognition and trust.
When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Nsongurua highlighted its critical role in digital marketing by driving increased visibility. By optimizing for specific keywords related to the business, SEO attracts targeted traffic consisting of users actively searching for products, services, or information related to the industry. This targeted traffic is more likely to convert into leads or customers. Websites that rank higher in search results are often perceived as more credible and trustworthy by users. Good SEO practices, such as optimizing content, improving user experience, and earning quality backlinks, contribute to building authority and trust with both users and search engines. Compared to paid advertising, SEO is a cost-effective long-term strategy that can continue to attract organic traffic without ongoing ad spend, resulting in a higher return on investment (ROI) over time.
Nsongurua also addressed the importance of email marketing, stating that creating a successful email marketing campaign involves several key strategies to engage subscribers, drive conversions, and achieve marketing objectives. These include defining clear goals, building a quality email list of subscribers who have opted in, and segmenting the email list based on demographics, behavior, and preferences to send targeted and personalized content. With the rise of mobile usage, she stressed the importance of optimizing digital marketing efforts for mobile users. This includes ensuring websites are mobile-friendly, creating mobile-optimized content, designing responsive email campaigns, and leveraging location-based marketing strategies.
Addressing data privacy and security, Nsongurua advised that businesses must stay informed about relevant data privacy regulations, be transparent with customers about data collection practices, and obtain explicit consent before collecting, storing, or using personal data for marketing purposes. Implementing robust data security measures is also crucial to protect customer data from unauthorized access, breaches, and cyber threats.
Nsongurua acknowledged the various challenges businesses face in digital marketing, such as the highly competitive digital landscape, frequently changing algorithms, and the demand for consistently high-quality content. She suggested that overcoming these challenges requires strategic planning, flexibility, continuous learning, data-driven decision-making, collaboration across teams, and a customer-centric approach to digital marketing.
Looking ahead, Nsongurua predicted that AI and machine learning, voice search optimization, interactive and immersive content, privacy-first marketing strategies, live video content, social commerce, green marketing initiatives, evolving influencer marketing, and the potential applications of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and blockchain technology will shape the future of digital marketing. These trends indicate a shift towards more personalized, interactive, ethical, and technology-driven digital marketing strategies that prioritize customer experience, engagement, and value creation. However, the digital landscape remains dynamic, and new innovations may continue to emerge, shaping the future of digital marketing in unforeseen ways.
