Marketing trends 2024: grab the tips from Genero’s marketing experts

Interactive content, animations, and playful typography

As content in 2024 evolves, movement takes center stage. This year, we’ll witness authentic how-to videos addressing audience problems while providing entertainment. Narrative videos, live streams, and longer-form content will also capture attention alongside short videos.

Playful illustrations and interactive content. Few interactive elements capture attention more effectively than static content. Animations in illustrations and typography are crucial. In addition, interactive infographics, playful gifs, and quizzes enrich the content effectively. Animation and movement are the key focus this year.

Adopting a “Less is more” approach. Bold minimalism, clean and visually striking content that makes an impact with fewer elements. This includes the use of bold colors, strong typography, simple yet powerful designs, with a limited color palette and a focus on typography to enhance clarity and impact.

Distinctiveness, clarity, and consistency in brand communication. It’s important to create a strong and recognizable brand identity that showcases the company’s values, creates experiences, and stays memorable. Distinctiveness is also crucial in the 2024 visual landscape: striking images that tell a story and evoke emotions. Stereotypes are history. Unique personalities, diversity, and different lifestyles are captivating. Sustainability is highlighted strongly in all communication this year. Sustainability or the use of diversity in images should not just be trends but must be part of the company’s values.

The nostalgia trend noticeable for some time, is expected to continue into 2024, influencing typography among other areas.

Of course, we shouldn’t forget artificial intelligence, as it allows designers to create something entirely new and push the boundaries of creativity in unprecedented ways.

Live shopping, videoing of podcasts and utilising AI

Livestreams are trending globally. Live shopping videos, featuring real-time discount links to products, encourage prompt purchase decisions.

The trend of videoing podcasts, which began in 2023, continues to grow this year. Editing both audio and video may sound labor-intensive, which used to be entirely manual work. However, with the tools and programs created by artificial intelligence, the process has significantly accelerated.

AI is revolutionizing video transcription. For example, Adobe’s editing program has a feature that transcribes the interview footage into clean text. This AI-driven transcription allows for easy editing, enabling the removal of unwanted text and the corresponding video segments. This process, once manually tedious, is something I look forward to utilizing in Finnish.

Short videos continue to trend, especially in vertical format. If your company has not yet entered the world of short vertical videos, it’s worth doing it now. However, the world of short videos is unforgiving. The content of the video is crucial, and something interesting must happen in the first few seconds. In 2024, videos are no longer seen solely as major productions; they can be quickly made with a phone. We now create many lightweight short videos during shootings. While fast-paced short videos are appealing, there is still a demand for long and in-depth videos.

Subtitling has become crucial, as more viewers watch videos without sound. Therefore, it’s essential that the video is captioned. Previously, captions were done entirely manually, proofread, transcribed sentence by sentence. AI can also assist in this process, even in Finnish. AI programs can caption videos quickly and compress them in a format that can be input into video editing software, where necessary adjustments can be made.

AI accelerates not only video production processes but also image editing. The same features that can now be done for images using AI will undoubtedly be applicable to videos in the near future.

When it comes to journalistic images and videos, we only use AI for processes, as journalistic content must be authentic. Regarding commercial images, the boundaries of editing are somewhat looser.

AI, bite-sized copies, scriptwriting, voice search optimization, and help content

Artificial intelligence – not a threat but an opportunity. The significance of artificial intelligence cannot be overlooked when considering the new trends in copywriting for 2024. The tools that initially felt a bit clumsy have rapidly improved and become more precise, even when writing in Finnish. However, AI doesn’t replace the creative designer; instead, it offers new opportunities to enhance their work. It could be said that copywriters shouldn’t fear AI but rather colleagues who have learned to use it. Now is the time to make deals with ChatGPT and other AI tools.

Tip: Given the surge in content volume, prioritizing quality is essential.

Content for mobile consumption should be concise. The majority of marketing content is now consumed on mobile devices, so content should be designed to fit their size and fast pace. Engaging headlines, easy-to-read sentences, short paragraphs, and elements like bullet points structure into clear, easily digestible bites that even a brief social media scroller can consume.

Tip: Especially focus on headlines.

The new golden age of scriptwriting. The world is flooded with video content, offering limitless possibilities for scriptwriters who enjoy visual thinking. While the era of large and epic TV commercials may largely be over, social media videos provide a platform for clever, emotional, or humorous storytelling. 

Tip: Keep in mind the old saying from the film industry: show, don’t tell!

Voice search optimization. People are increasingly using voice searches on mobile devices. Spoken queries are longer than written ones and are often phrased as questions, for example, “What is the best pizza place in Helsinki?” When optimizing content for voice searches, use conversational language, include questions, and long-tail keywords. 

Tip: Want to better understand voice search? Try it yourself!

The Hero-Hub-Help template, which is a content strategy tool that helps outline necessary content structures more easily. Hero content, shared a couple of times a year, aims to grab attention and improve awareness. Hub content, published throughout the year, nurtures existing customers and stakeholders. The continuously available Help content addresses the most frequently asked questions and helps customers solve problems.

Tip: Emphasize help content -> it’s quick, easy, and evergreen.

E-E-A-T signals play a significant role in search engine optimization

E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), which were the focus of the Google Core updates in the fall of 2023, naturally continue to be crucial in 2024. We have noticed their impact on rankings across various industries up to this point.

The authority of website content and expertise in your field are key factors in gaining success in search engine optimization in 2024. It’s not enough for your brand and experts to be prominent on your own website. In 2024, they also need to be visible on other websites and in articles.

Content must be unique, useful, and address the questions users are seeking answers to. As competition on Google intensifies each year, and the amount of AI-generated content grows exponentially, it becomes crucial to stand out. Google also wants to know the sources of information on pages, so including references and author information in articles is no longer something to be overlooked.

Finding creative ways to leverage artificial intelligence in search engine optimization is undoubtedly one of this year’s trends.

One intriguing question for this year is whether Google’s AI-generated search results will also be available in the EU.

No more “revenue growth at all cost”

Companies have advanced in tracking the impact of their marketing efforts in recent years. As the investments have been proven to yield results, billions have been spent on acquiring new customers and increasing revenue. The downside to this has been the massively increased advertising costs, especially on platforms like Google and Meta. This has resulted in the contraction of profit margins, which continue to shrink consistently. 

Companies are becoming increasingly aware of how expensive acquiring revenue through paid advertising can be. Securing financing for new customer acquisition is also generally more challenging.

All of this leads to the focus in 2024 being more on whether the investment truly yields profit, and strategies and tactics need to be adjusted accordingly.