This is the second edition of my Digital Marketing predictions for brands operating in Africa. Brands have continued to creatively adopt digital marketing, however, growth is being hampered by the pace of digital penetration, lack of adequate infrastructure and slow adoption of eCommerce. Nonetheless, the future of digital marketing continues to shine bright and brands are encouraged to jump in fully in order to secure their competitive advantage.

Here are my 5 predictions for 2020 

1.) Organic Search will be important, so brands must be positioned to be found. 

I was about recording a video and realized I needed an additional light. I Googled ‘buy vlogging accessories ghana’ and the next day I drove about 1hr to the nearest shop selling lights in Accra and about $300 in that shop. I was a customer they were not expecting.

Another time, my wife wanted to try out a new salon, we searched on Google and found a place close enough to the house. We drove there, but the shop had closed down for almost a year. So it has been a hit and miss.

However, many more people are searching with strong intent. These are real people ( free, very qualified traffic) with remarkable purchase intent, but only brands that take SEO seriously will benefit.

According to Eli Shwartz, Google has taken a huge leap forward into making search really about ‘intent matching’ rather than pure string matching with the incorporation of BERT into the ranking, and the featured snippets algorithm. 

Eli Shwartz

Additionally, other digital channels are getting more expensive due to increased competition in reaching a limited target audience and rising cost per acquisition. In order to maximise your ROI from digital, search must be a strong driver in your digital marketing mix.

2.) Influencer marketing will have a turbulent year, giving rise to new influencers: Nano Influencers 

Influencer marketing spend will continue to grow in 2020 and it is projected to reach $15B in 2022, almost double the amount spent in 2019 (Business Insider). Brands will allocate budget to influencer marketing, however, influencers must prove that there is measurable ROI on the brand’s investments. 

Social media platforms are also actively policing influencer Marketing to bring transparency and better measurement for both influencers and brands.

 Facebook extended its Brands Collabs Manager tool to Instagram to serve as a more complete influencer marketplace, and early this year Twitter updated its policy. Twitter categorized many common practices on the platform unacceptable and deemed to be in clear violation of the platform’s policy. These include creating fake trends, coordinated tweeting and retweeting and many more.

According to the Business Insider report, there are two primary ways of categorizing influencers: Reach and Niche. In order to drive sales and improve ROI, more brands will choose niche influencers in 2020 which will boost the rise of nano influencers (with less than 10,000 followers). Importantly, brands should select influencers based on their business objectives and access to their target audience. 

3.) Serialized video content creation and distribution

Video will continue to create opportunities for brands to communicate with their consumers. Last year, I accurately predicted that video duration will become longer giving brands more on-screen time to connect with their audiences.

There are many advantages to creating serialized video: 

1. Brands will be able to juxtapose short term messaging, e.g. offers, promotions, etc with longer-term brand objectives such as improving brand affinity, communicating brand values, infusing humour and more.
2. Consumers will start treating the videos as content rather than just ads. 
3. Brands will find it easier to ‘jump on trends’ if it aligns with the production schedule

Brands would require adequate video production and distribution budget to implement this, however, the cost of creating video content is set to reduce, thanks to tiktok. The new social media app is promoting raw, unedited and more authentic video content in contrast to the high end, slick videos popular on Instagram. 

Also, according to Smart Insights, 72% of consumers prefer video over text when learning about a new product or service and 83% would consider sharing a video they enjoyed with friends. This will increase organic distribution with no additional spend, create awareness and increase ROI for the brand (and possibly go viral).

4.) First-Party Data will move beyond being a Digital Marketing buzzword.

When I started my journey in Digital Marketing over 10 years ago, access to first-party data was the guaranteed way of generating ROI on digital efforts. A few years later, I saw a major shift where social media followers became the ‘new’ gold, and brands were content to invest in reaching a borrowed audience.

Over the past few years, however, there have been growing concerns about misuse of customer data, challenges over data privacy, and the need for responsible advertising. This brought about regulations like the GDPR and CCPA. Add to this the increasing cost of reaching the ‘borrowed’ audience and it becomes clear that brands want more control and access.

This year, brands will start the radical implementation of gathering first-party data by asking for personal details such as name, email and phone number. My advice to brands will be to understand that this request is a transaction in of itself. Brands must also provide value in exchange for consumer’s personal details and the responsibility for data protection will now fall on the brands. 

5.) Improved personalization and digital marketing automation.

In 2019, I predicted that personalization will be a key strategy for brands but it didn’t quite become big. So, I am taking another swipe at it. The premise is still the same as in 2019. The brands that proactively include personalisation in their communication will stand out and get the attention of their audience. The tools to drive this already exist, all that is left is the strategic oversight, required knowledge and willingness from brands to implement. There are a few places you can start personalisation and see almost instant results in 2020.

• Email Communication – Invest in Email Service tools that allow you to personalise communication to your subscribers such as Mailchimp.
• Product Recommendation – Jumia, Amazon, Netflix all deploy recommendation engines that personalise your experience with the brands.
• Marketing Automation – Give a personalised experience to your users with marketing automation. Created Ads that follow a sequence, or email campaigns designed for their choices, or just put their names on the product. Beverage companies like Coca-Cola, Heineken and Diageo have successfully run similar campaigns.

So That’s it. These are my 5 predictions for 2020 for brands in Africa. What trends do you see and which ones are you planning to implement in 2020?