The coming year will see many innovations and changes in marketing. I have recently surfed the web and checked into Marketing Prof and here are some of the key marketing predictions for the coming year and beyond.
When you hear the word “design,” what comes to mind? Graphic design? Websites? Print? Uber?! Uber is a logistics company that has tapped into the design world to make your life easier and make you feel special. You don’t need cash, you don’t have to tip, and you can call everything from a sedan to a limo. Its customer experience is designed to take into account that we now carry our mobile phones more than we do cash. It understands we like to ride in clean, comfortable cars, and that we want a car to come when you need it—whenever and wherever. That is what sets Uber apart—its ease of use and elegance of design. In 2016, customers are going to expect you to recognize their needs and demonstrate that you know them. They want tailored online shopping experiences and apps that auto-populate content of interest to them. In short, customers are growing accustomed to being recognized as humans and demanding experiences designed with their humanity in mind. Source
At a time when consumers demand instant gratification, marketers must more deeply engage each customer to build advocacy. The key is cognitive commerce. This will enable marketers to gain insights into a vast collection of information and possibilities, understand what individuals really want and what they are saying, get a line of sight into their unique personalities, how they respond to different messages and much more. With this deeper level of insight marketers can identify patterns and make unlikely connections that allow them to engage consumers in highly personalized in context conversations.
Studies have shown that only 14% of people trust traditional advertising, and yet 78% of us trust our peers for recommendations. According to Edelman Trust Barometer, employees’ voices have more power than CEOs in the digital bazaar. Leading brands are investing resources to create a workforce of engaged brand ambassadors. The result is a win/win. The company benefits from more authentic communication, and employees build personal brands. At the core of this approach is trust, authenticity, and transparency—the cultural pillars essential for activating the workforce around social business best practices. The net result: “Branding from the inside out.”
Virtual reality technology, like Oculus Rift, will inevitably have a huge impact on the way that marketers engage consumers in 2016. One of the biggest keys to marketing, especially to Millennials, is personalization. With the ability to literally tell 360-degree stories, companies will be able to engage like never before. The media and marketing world has gone through an increasing rate of change, with the explosion of new channels, new devices and entirely new formats arriving on a weekly basis to create massive new opportunities, complexity and headaches for marketers. But those changes will be nothing compared to what is about to hit us on the TV landscape. The arrival of VR (virtual reality) in 2016, combined with a major explosion of streaming and the death of old world distribution models will unleash a new age of what we used to call “TV”. Adoption of VR in 2016 and beyond will undoubtedly cause some kind of shift in marketing ideology.
It’s easy to get caught up in the new-fanged tech trends that allow us to connect more seamlessly with our consumers, but to what end? If you don’t have the basics of your brand and business mastered, the best social media campaign in the world won’t save you. First, know what you stand for. Whether your company calls it a Purpose, Point of Difference, Proposition, or Master Equity, know how you’re different from competitors and drive that message home. Second, while content may be king, context is queen. Make sure you marry your message with your medium.
The next frontier for marketing teams is finding cohesive alignment with their data science counterparts. Although traditionally thought of as two totally different animals―analytical number-crunchers vs. message-obsessed creative types―both groups serve a brand’s goal of deeply understanding the customer persona. In the new world of data-driven content and advertising, data science and marketing must operate as a coordinated unit, with predictive analytics driving targeted communication with consumers. Data is the rocket fuel for marketing’s future.
2016 will be the year of the great data exchange between consumers and marketers – and this will prove dangerous for marketers that don’t catch on. People want something more in return for the information they give to organizations, and it has to be meaningful to them. This particularly rings true with Millennials and Generation Z, who are much more inclined to share their data such as mobile numbers, lifestyle information and email addresses with brands. Savvy marketers will understand this and those who will be winning will be the ones who can provide personalized and meaningful experiences beyond just financial incentives to earn lifelong loyalty.
Marketers place great value on understanding buyer intent so they can present the most effective messages or calls-to-action on the Web. For a long time, though, gleaning intent from visitors’ browsing behavior and actually acting on it was just a pipe dream. That’s no longer the case, as technology can now interpret behavioral data in real time and instantly deliver a relevant message, recommendation or experience at the 1:1 level – and we’ll see marketers capitalize on these capabilities more in the year ahead. Newer systems even incorporate machine-based learning and response automation, helping unlock the full potential of intent-based marketing.
All signs point to video. Whether it’s Facebook Live, video on Twitter, Periscope, Blab, Instagram, Vine, or the old standby YouTube, this will be the year when video becomes a primary content marketing consideration for all brands–even B2B.This is partially because the customer appetite for video is insatiable, and it’s the most efficient way to atomize content marketing. Video will continue to drive marketing and be used even more in advertising. Live streaming will continue to grow and apps like Blab and Periscope will continue to gain market share. Source
Snapchat is already moving into the space of a “standard marketing platform.” In the upcoming year, marketers will come to understand that Snapchat isn’t just a tool for fun marketing experiments; it’s a platform that users are flocking to in order to digest social media in real time. In order to deliver integrated campaigns that make constituents feel connected, especially the Millennials you need to be offering exclusive content that has an expiration date. This “less is more,” or ephemeral, marketing is all about communication that’s shorter and more to the point. In a world where people have less and less time, this model works. Snapchat is the ultimate platform for making consumers feel connected and at the same time, unique. Take advantage of this huge opportunity to connect uniquely using just a small window of your audience’s time. Be organic, speak their language, and just cut to the chase.
With Facebook already working on tests for its own search engine, it seems inevitable that search capabilities will go far beyond Google, Bing, and Yahoo. As search capabilities improve within social media, brands will get an automatic boost. In addition, when buy buttons and payment messaging appear on social media in 2016, an all-in-one-type platform will manifest (more convergence). With advanced search capabilities, integrated payment methods, and the social impact that empowers sites like Facebook and Twitter, consumers will be able to make purchases, chat with their friends about what they bought, and post the social proof of their new purchase. Advanced search will bring a more integrated social experience that expands to the e-commerce realm. If you cater your marketing efforts to this all-in-one, buy-and-share social media search, it’s clear you will realize returns. Make the buying process easier, but also make it an experience.
Wearable technology will see a user adoption rate of 28 percent by 2016 – even more data for marketers to mine. So, will this data be derived from people’s day-to-day habits? It looks that way. Every year from now until the foreseeable future, we’ll see the it become a bigger tool that marketers can use to engage with customers. Source
Quora is an online knowledge market, and currently it isn’t used that much. However, it gets a ton of traffic, and content creators are able to get the same, if not more, exposure on Quora as earned media from a typical publication owing to Quora’s prebuilt audience and how its algorithm for its feed works.
