BEST of 2017!! – Marketing Trends

Focus is crucial for your 2017 success – and that can be a challenge!!

I don’t have a crystal ball, but I do have some informed ideas about how you can get more visibility for your business in 2017.

Keep in mind, visibility is one aspect of marketing that won’t change—regardless of the year. (Note: the bigger the business, the more diverse your customer base will be.)

This is my first message of the year – Hope this helps!!Here you go….

Top 10 Trends Driving Marketing In 2017

1. Increased Focus on Your Customers Experience
Customer experience is the heart of marketing for every industry. While it has always been a marketing focus, today’s businesses—at least the successful ones—have embraced customer-centric philosophies to create effective marketing strategies and positive digital transformation.

2. Engaged and Effective Measuring: Analytics 2.0
Talk of measuring marketing has been on an endless loop lately. With confessions from Facebook and others about how their data doesn’t tell a complete story, what we do have is less than stellar. Now—and in the upcoming year – measurements will be done with purpose. Expect business objectives to tie back to profit, revenue, customer retention, and satisfaction.

3. Lean on the New Marketing Lieutenants: Marketing Technologists and Data Scientists
To make the first two trends on the list work, executives must be data-driven. As companies aim to connect email, social media, and paid, owned, and earned marketing strategies (among others), they must incorporate technology needed to implement and support it. This is critical and studies show that four out of five enterprises do this already.

4. Personalize Everything
As corporations work to individualize everything (from Coca-Cola cans to shoes), mass customization has transitioned into personalization. For some businesses, this will mean ensuring touch points are specific and individual. For others, it’s simply streamlining the purchasing process and making it more responsive.

5. Better Video Content… And More of It
Yes, content is still king, but the kind of content that rules the web is changing. Social content, reviews, blogs, papers, and eBooks are all still crucial aspects of marketing, but video will be the rage moving forward. Considering the success of games like Pokémon Go, expect virtual and augmented reality to take us into the future. Brands that fail to incorporate visuals and videos will be left by the wayside.

6. More Social Media Marketing
We need to change the way we think about Social Media. Social media strategies should market less and sell more. Often, brands use social media to blast highly generic content—content that people are ignoring. Social media should be personalized too, and it’s not too hard to accomplish. Use social media for the frontline marketing of sales and services. Use it to engage with consumers, not blast messages.

7. Embrace the IoT
The Internet of Things has been in its infancy. In 2017, expect businesses to leverage the power of billions of connected devices—a marketer’s dream. Collecting and making that data useful, though, will be key. Beacons, sensors, edge devices, TVs, clothes, fitness brands, and more are all producing useful data, meaning more opportunities to get closer to the customer. Expect the IoT to transform how we leverage tech and data.

8. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Chatbots Go Mainstream
Providing positive customer experience and service means leveraging the power of technology. Asking locals for advice on where to eat is good, but they don’t know whether you like spicy food or have a gluten intolerance. Imagine a chatbot who knows your likes, dislikes, and needs and can guide you on where to eat, how to travel, or where to shop. Chatbots can use AI, deep learning, and data crumbs from across the web to understand and guide consumer behavior.

9. Right-Time Marketing – Instead of Real-Time Marketing
Real-time marketing – with eyes out for opportunities to market and score – has been hot the last few years. Think of Oreo’s “Dunking in the Dark” campaign. As we now use data to isolate the best moment to connect with consumers, real-time should switch to right-time.

10. Prepare for Marketing to Own Digital Transformation Campaigns
Many are suggesting that CMOs own digital transformation. I staunchly disagree. What CMOs should actually own is the digital transformation “campaign”—the process of showing the market and your teams that a company is transforming. Do this by clearly explaining how these trends, along with digital initiatives, affect customer experience and how the company is executing it.

Of course, this list isn’t exhaustive; save room for the unpredictable and unprecedented. Given last year’s trends and what we see on the horizon, this is how we should be planning for the upcoming year.

CONCLUSION:

If you feel this information is overwhelming or you just want to run some ideas past our team, just give us a call. We would be happy to help.

Let M2 help make 2017 even better…