{"id":5173,"date":"2016-10-26T23:17:42","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T23:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/feeds.marketingland.com\/~r\/mktingland\/~3\/XxCXkF0Ke9s\/making-sense-latest-trends-digital-retail-194499"},"modified":"2016-10-26T23:25:13","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T23:25:13","slug":"making-sense-of-the-latest-trends-in-digital-retail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fixmyinfo.com\/making-sense-of-the-latest-trends-in-digital-retail\/","title":{"rendered":"Making sense of the latest trends in digital retail"},"content":{"rendered":"
One of the things I love about my job is that marketing is constantly evolving. Just when you think you have mastered the latest tools and strategies, a whole new generation of technologies emerges, creating opportunities for marketers to take their work in exciting directions.<\/p>\n
Last month, a group of my colleagues attended Shop.org, one of the biggest gatherings of digital retail professionals on the planet. As always, this year\u2019s event introduced us to new approaches and technologies, showed continued movement on trends that are changing the digital retail space and enabled us to think about how all types of marketers view digital retail. As we head into the holidays<\/a>, the busiest time of year for retailers, it\u2019s important to keep on the lookout for some of these trends and technologies we saw at Shop.org.<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, the relationship between technology and marketing continues to take center stage in digital retail. Forward-thinking marketers are tapping into the latest consumer technology trends to create more meaningful and personalized experiences for shoppers. Here are the four trends in retail marketing technology that I\u2019m most excited to see develop in the coming months:<\/p>\n The VR concept has been around for a while, and many have talked about its potential marketing capabilities<\/a>. But over the past year, with the popularity of the Oculus Rift and other devices, it\u2019s started to gain traction with consumers, and it\u2019s rapidly becoming one of the hottest tickets in town.<\/p>\n And we can\u2019t fail to mention the Pok\u00e9mon Go craze of the summer that popularized augmented reality (AR). VR and AR revenue is projected to reach $120 billion by 2020, according to Digi-Capital<\/a>.<\/p>\n Marketers are getting on board with VR\/AR and are developing practical applications for the retail space. By combining the latest VR\/AR technologies with in-store and online shopping behaviors, tech-friendly marketers intend to provide immersive experiences that enable consumers and B2B buyers to interact with products and brands in ways that go far beyond even the most impressive 2-D digital opportunities.<\/p>\n Customer feedback and reviews are a mainstay of digital marketing. We\u2019ve already seen a trend toward increased demand for visual content, with users preferring to consume videos and images rather than text. Now we\u2019re seeing increased demand for visual feedback \u2014 the integration of visual content with traditional customer reviews.<\/p>\n The push for visual feedback makes sense. Given consumer preferences for videos and still images, it\u2019s only logical that visual reviews<\/a> of products and services are more effective than written reviews. After all, who wants to read a 1,000-word article when they could watch a 30-second video about a topic?<\/p>\n Digestible content is key to staying above the noise in today\u2019s oversaturated world. The challenge for marketers is to provide opportunities for customers to contextualize their experience by sharing images and videos of products rather than simply asking customers to rate products on a five-star scale.<\/p>\n At this year\u2019s Shop.org event, there was a heavy emphasis on the \u201cpeople trust people\u201d concept. This seems counterintuitive to the sudden spike in robot conversation we\u2019ve seen over the last few months. But in reality, this concept aligns with the artificial intelligence conversation weighing the pros and cons of machines replacing humans.<\/p>\n1. Virtual Reality (VR)<\/h2>\n
2. Visual feedback<\/h2>\n
3. People trust people<\/h2>\n