18th March 2020

30 Key Trends in Digital Marketing in Malaysia for 2020

The year 2020 is here! And as every year, is a good time to review the digital marketing trends to be prepared for what lies ahead.

At Poxse Digital Marketing we have already done our homework and taken note of the most outstanding trends in the main areas of digital marketing in Malaysia. Do you want to know what they are? Well don’t miss this article!

New technologies make digital marketing a changing and continually evolving sector. According to the latest data, four-fifths of Malaysia’s 32.25 million population are now online, where 78% are active social media users.

Therefore, being up to date with the latest digital marketing trend is an essential requirement in order to create a sound strategy for your brand’s digital campaigns this year.

In this post, we have selected a total of 30 2020 digital marketing trends, among which are old trends that still works in 2020 which you should consider investing time and money to be successful.

Top 30 Digital Marketing Trends in Malaysia for 2020

Shoppable posts
Storytelling
Interactive Content Marketing
Digital Marketplaces
Social Listening and Semantics
Google Ads Smart Bidding
Segmentation by Audience (Google Ads)
Pay-per-click Automation
Position 0 in Google
Rankbrain
Data Analysis Automation
Progressive Forms
Personalised Ads for Relevant Advertising
Voice Search
Mobile Payments and Greater Use of Mobile in General
Advertising on Tiktok
Ephemeral Content
Advertising with Influencers
Social Groups and Communities
Augmented Reality
Live Streaming
Video Podcast
Video Blogging for Business
Videos in Emails
E-Learning Videos
360 videos
Dynamic Webpage Elements
Asymmetrical designs
The concept of white space
Overlays

General Digital Marketing Trends for 2020

1. Shoppable posts

Social media is an integral part of digital marketing and is increasingly linked to purchasing. An example of this is Instagram Shopping, which allows brands to tag their products in photos and videos and users buy them directly on the network itself.

There are more and more options available to us to directly link conversions with activity on social networks, so in 2020 we expect these features to become increasingly important.

2. Storytelling

For many years, brands have used storytelling to connect with potential customers and communicate their values. But now a new trend in digital marketing is emerging: storyscaping .

The concept of storyscaping emerged in 2014 with the publication of the book Storyscaping: Stop Creating Ads, Start Creating Worlds (“Storyscaping: stop creating ads and start creating worlds”) by Gaston Legorburu and Darren McColl. In his own words, storyscaping is “an environment of emotional and transactional experiences where each connection inspires interactions with others, so that the brand becomes part of the consumer’s story.”

3. Interactive Content Marketing

Customers have become more important for brands, even after the purchase has done. The opportunity provided by the digital environment, when establishing feedback and adding value, gives it an increasingly active role .

Therefore, interactive content is one of the 2020 digital marketing trends that should have more weight in your strategy for next year. Text-based content opens up to new formulas, in which the user has a participatory role .

From a 360º video, in which the user is fully immersed in a virtual visit to a museum, to a Card game, in which he must match, a painting with its author. Options for users to interact with your brand vastly varies. If you want to start with simple, but very effective interactive content marketing campaigns, we recommend a few:

Quizzes and surveys
Campaigns with paths, in the style ‘Choose your own adventure’
Memory Card Games
Content carousels with video and image galleries

4. From the search engines to digital marketplaces

Until recently, search engines were the absolute leaders for product or service inquiries. But now, 55% of Americans have started searching directly for products on Amazon .

In report published by Hootesuit in September 2019, 88% of the total internet users in Malaysia visited online retail or ecommerce stores. This is still expected to grow as the number of internet users in the country is growing year after year.

According to a Forrester Research study, more than 50% of online purchases are made from the main marketplaces in the world: Amazon, Alibaba, JD.com and Ebay. This figure is expected to increase to 67% by 2022.

5. Social listening and semantic analysis

One of the 2020 digital marketing trends that can benefit the most from your brand is social listening. This is one of the go-to digital marketing strategy of brands when it comes to knowing what users are talking about in any online medium (social networks, digital media and information portals, blogs …).

Content monitoring, using hashtags, mentions and / or keywords will allow you to know, in real time, what Internet users are saying about you and your products and / or services. In addition, you can analyze what they think of your competition, your sector, or any other subject. Taking advantage of that information can offer you an important competitive advantage.

Here’s list of some of the best social media listening tools in the market today:

6. Google Ads smart bidding

The smart bidding is a subset of automated bid strategies using machine learning for conversions or improve the conversion value in each auction.

For advertisers, this feature enables you to optimize and automate bids with advanced machine learning, a wide variety of contextual cues, flexible performance controls, and transparent performance reporting.

7. Segmentation by audience (Google Ads)

Now, Google Ads allows you to add audience targeting to ad groups to reach users based on who they are, their interests and habits, what they are looking for or how they have previously interacted with your company.

Depending on the different types of campaigns, you can use different audience segmentations and even create layer audiences. That is, it will be possible to combine demographic and keyword targeting to create extremely relevant ads.

8. Pay per click automation

The automation of pay per click has become a very powerful way to improve the performance of our campaigns. In recent years, large SEM companies like Google have invested large budget to create and improve their automation options.

To take full advantage of this functionality, we must make it easier for algorithms to learn with our campaigns and thus improve themselves. Automations need human supervision to control their evolution, but they help us free up some of our time to dedicate to more qualitative tasks.

9. Position 0 in Google (SEO)

Recently, Google has incorporated a new privileged position in its search results: position 0 or “rich snippet”. This result appears in the first prominent position and shows a summary of the content of the page.

In addition to increasing the expected click-through rate, reaching this position is crucial to appear in voice searches . To achieve this, it is important to work well on semantics and find ways to answer frequently asked questions from users.

You can achieve a position 0 in Google by optimizing contents using structured data.

10. Rankbrain

Rankbrain is Google’s name for the machine learning-based artificial intelligence system it uses to help process its search results.

Today, Google already interprets more than 30% of searches through “Neural Matching,” a method that allows you to recognize the human concepts behind keywords. An aspect that we will have to take into account to assess SEO trends in 2020.

11. Data Analysis Automation

Automation is one of the biggest digital marketing trends in 2020 and in coming years

It is estimated that by the end 2020 over 40% of data-driven tasks will be automated. As a result, productivity will improve and non-specialized data scientists will be able to take better advantage of the information. Also, this trend will be a great help for decision makers.

12. Progressive forms

The forms are a necessary tool to qualify the contacts and assess whether we are dealing with a potential client or not. But if we ask for too much information, it is possible that the visitor becomes saturated and leaves us.

Progressive forms solve this dilemma intelligently, since they remind the user and only show him the fields that he has not completed on previous visits. In this way, we can progressively qualify the contact over several visits.

13. Personalized ads for relevant advertising

As the number of internet users in Malaysia grow, the variety of audience also expands. In this case, personalized ads are the best way to target specific set of audience without burning a lot of money.

In the interest of a better advertising experience by users, a specific section should be dedicated to the personalization of the ads. The possibilities offered by technology and data today make it possible to meet each user with a high level of detail, and serve them ads that re related to their tastes, interests and needs.

14. Voice Search

Although it is true that some time ago voice searches did not provide good results (90% of users expressed their disappointment with the result), this situation has been changing in such a way that these failures have been refined to make Voice search more reliable.

Back then, the reason that voice searches did not work well came from the inability of search engines to correctly process the sound emitted by users, making the search incomprehensible.

Now, the development of web pages has improved to another level in such a way that the vast majority of services successfully process speech requests, even those that show a defect or are processed by children.

In Malaysia, Voice search is really not a big digital marketing trend, at least not 2019. But 2020 and beyond, users who use voice search will surely grow.

15. Mobile payments and greater use of mobile in general

Traffic is increasingly mobile. There is a large amount of data that corroborates the use of mobile compared to the use of computers. For example:

Almost all reports on email open rates claim that nearly 50% of openings are made from mobile devices, according to HubSpot .
Mobile users check their email three times more than users who do not have it linked to their mobile phone. In addition, 35% of professionals claim to see their emails directly from the mobile.

These data lead us to an even more interesting one: according to Campaign Monitor, 52% of customers are less likely to commit to a company, as they have suffered a bad mobile experience.

In 2019, 58% of mobile internet users in Malaysia made online purchases via mobile devices.

Digital Marketing: Social Media Trends 2020

16. Advertising on TikTok

There are approximately 4 million Tik Tok users in Malaysia.

TikTok is the new social network that has become the great surprise of the sector. In no time, this social network has reached over 1 billion users, but if you’re not in the right age bracket, you may not even have known it exists.

Recently, Tik Tok has started to incorporate advertising solutions, so it is becoming one of the options with the most potential to reach the centennial public through social networks.

17. Ephemeral content

The creation and consumption of ephemeral content grows year after year – from the popularity of Snapchat among young people, to the success of Instagram Stories and Facebook Stories.

It has become one of the most sought out digital marketing trends in early 2019 and 2020.

The trend to create short, engaging, entertaining, and ephemeral content is here to stay.

So much to that, according to a Hootsuite study, this year 64% of marketing professionals have already incorporated Instagram Stories into their Social Media strategy.

With the growing Instagram and Facebook users in Malaysia, using ephemeral content as one of your strategies in social media will be more in-demand.

18. Advertise with Influencers

Thanks to social networks, the use of influencers and micro influencers in online marketing strategies has proliferated .

And this trend will continue to be very present in 2020 where even more brands will join forces with influencers to promote their brands and products.

Although the trend of the brands for this year will go through working with more micro-influencers instead of large influencers.

Of course, the key to the success of campaigns with influencers and micro-influencers will be to choose the most suitable influencer for your brand.

The top 12 most active social platforms in Malaysia that you can find the most influencers are YouTube (68%), Facebook (67%), WhatsApp (60%), Instagram (47%), Facebook Messenger (45%), WeChat (42%), Google+ (41%), Twitter (41%), LinkedIn (30%) and Pinterest (26%), LINE (25%), Tumblr (23%).

Here are some of the top Influencers in Malaysia you may want to get in touch with:

For a comprehensive list of influencers in Malaysia, you may refer to this.

19. Social groups and communities

During this 2019 we have seen how the Facebook groups would have passed. And during 2020 we will see how communities within social networks become commonplace, since they allow users to share experiences, discuss certain topics, exchange opinions, seek solutions to specific problems, etc.

For this reason, many brands will choose to create their own community groups to do Social listening and, at the same time, be able to promote their products or services when they consider it appropriate.

Video Marketing Trends 2020

20. Augmented reality

In 2020, video campaigns on social networks will be able to incorporate augmented reality technology, which will improve the user experience with ads and achieve higher CTRs.

For example, you can make your potential customers try on clothes virtually or visualize how a new piece of furniture would look in their home.

21. Live streaming

With the use of live videos , you enhance the feeling in users of speaking directly to them. This feeling of closeness encourages engagement as they expect their questions or comments to be answered in real time.

Today, companies can use live video to publicize:

New products
Product demonstrations
Webinars
Question and answer sessions
Interviews

In addition, it is a simple and free format to perform that does not require editing or post-production work.

More and more platforms and social networks promote live video-oriented functionality such as Instagram Live, Facebook Live or YouTube Live, and now recently LinkedIn Live.

22. Video podcast

The concept of video podcast is very simple: it is simply about making a radio program recorded on video to show what is happening and who is behind the microphones. This allows you to better connect with your audience and make users feel closer to the brand.

23. Video Vlogging for business

Vlogging is one of the most popular video marketing that we see today, especially in youtube. What happens with vlogging is that it brings users closer to the brand, since through it, you show yourself in a more human way and users can connect better with you.

It will be one of the best ways to humanize your brand since you will let the user know your team, routines and values. Obviously, without leaving aside the relevant moments for our company, for example the launch of a new product, the preparation of an event, etc.

For example, CodyHongTV amassed a total of 1.03 million followers. His channel includes unboxing content, travel vlogs, pranks and more, suited for those who liked to watch a bit of everything.

Brands can also adopt this video marketing strategy.

24. Videos in emails

Despite the influx of new trends in online marketing, email marketing has weathered its influence. Proof of this is the fact that it still offers a comparatively higher ROI.

Even as a result of high video consumption, most people still expect to receive video news in their emails for different reasons.

The combination of emails and videos is like taking the best of both worlds. For many, the result has always been an increase in click-through rates, increased exchange, and time spent checking our email.

So, the conclusion is that, regardless of the trend, you can always expand the reach of your video and likewise share it with your email subscribers.

25. 360 videos

Hong Kong Airlines is one of the first companies to launch a 360-degree video ad and the results exceeded the expectations of many. Its effectiveness was rated 35 times better than that of the traditional 2D ad.

Since then, renowned brands around the world have expressed interest in 360 ° videos. This is because it is not only innovative but exceptional and, most importantly, stimulating. As such, it makes it easy to capture the audience’s attention and raise their engagement levels.

With 360 ° video content, users can control perspective, either with a VR headset or through other devices, such as a phone and / or tablet. Tests by Google on the effectiveness of these videos compared to the standard format showed incredible results that included higher percentages of clicks, actions, reproductions and subscriptions.

Renowned camera manufacturers like Kodak and GoPro are already manufacturing 360-degree cameras today. Likewise, the well-known platforms that already support 360 videos today, include Facebook, YouTube and Google.

26. E-Learning Videos

The main reason for making videos is to get more leads. However, many people use ad blockers, but why? Well, for one thing, the ads have become too many, some of which don’t add consumer value.

These ads can slow down the search on a certain site. However, the use of educational videos has gained popularity as people are always looking for videos that explain various ways to do something.

Therefore, making explanatory videos or tutorials will undoubtedly get more potential customers for your company in 2020.

User Experience and Web Design Trends 2020

27. Dynamic Webpage elements

Dynamic elements, such as animations, illustrations, gifs, or flexible effects, have come to web design to stay for a while.

These types of designs achieve very visual and creative results whenever they are combined in the right way. As I always say, if something adds to a website, it stays; if it remains, it is removed.

28. Asymmetrical designs

Another trend in web design for 2020 is asymmetric compositions. Asymmetrical web design evokes a sense of movement without any dynamic visual effects. A lot of sports brands use this kind of design concept as it mostly induce emotion to the users. A few years ago, they would have been interpreted as chaotic and disordered, unlike now, provided they have a visual sense and are justified.

The trend of asymmetry has grown a lot this past year. In 2020, we are confident that we will see much more. So much so, that it could become a regular trend.

29. The concept of white space

This is not new but it seems essential to include it as a web design trend for 2020 since the saying less is more, and must be applied in each creation of web pages.

White space gives any page or screen a sense of space and balance .

Clever use of white space can increase readability, highlight important design elements such as calls to action, separate sections, and create a more balanced overall appearance.

If you want to see how effective it is to include white sections on a website to obtain conversion and avoid distractions, you only have to see the Google search engine or the Apple website.

30. Overlays

The layered effect can be achieved by placing elements on top of each other so that they are partially hidden, or by allowing additional content to appear once clicked.

If done well, using white space and using hierarchy between elements, the final composition will have a balanced, ordered and readable appearance.

Conclusion

2020 is here! And as every year, it is time to review the digital marketing trends to be prepared for what lies ahead.
Sure you are at the time of planning your digital actions for 2020. What do you think of the digital marketing trends that we show you? They are challenging, for sure. But once implemented correctly, they can take you to another level.

The online world brings new demands. Users constantly reconfigure the ecosystem in which businesses develop. It is up to you to decide whether or not to adapt.

We will always be here to help you. Dare to implement them!