I’m on a journey to make 30 predictions in 30 days – and strengthen my decision making abilities in the process. Join me on the journey by jumping in with your predictions by shooting me an email.
This prediction will probably generate the most traffic out of all my posts simply because I used an antidotal title (10 things about) to help get ranked by google and get quick hits of traffic. I am leveraging this tactic … because Google says so.
Number titles and blogs that lead to list formats are commonly used to get a quick drive in exposure and traffic because our brains actually understand that what I am about to read will only last beyond X number of points. I am also going to hyperlink to a blog that mentions this case in point so that I improve my indexing for the site– 17 ways to create catchy blog titles.
In a 2013 report from Gartner, we saw that content creation was the fifth most important (budget) expense on a marketer's budget. In 2016, SmartInsights reported that content marketing will have the greatest digital marketing impact in overall spend. Over the next couple of years marketing will become completely integrated with our personal devices, things, and experiences. A brand’s message will be more subliminal and blended in making it less obvious for consumers to tell if the message is endorsed by a brand or is a legitimate review/experience with a brand.
I last wrote about IoT and how nearly everything we do will be interconnected. This translates to marketing as well. If all our products and experiences are interconnected by the internet between software and hardware, then our marketing will leverage data from these interconnected devices while simultaneously discovering integrated ways (and dare I say engaging) ways to connect with individuals.
While digital advertising won’t die, it won’t consist of the random annoying banners that exist on websites. It will take on new shapes and forms. The lines will be less clearer on where genuine content exists and marketing begins. This is already happening with companies filling out false iTunes reviews talking about their product and small businesses leaving false Yelp reviews to help shadow the one or two bad reviews.
2016-2019 will see an incredible leap in marketing - it will cross its own chasm of sorts. Marketers have already started to become more analytically driven with all the various online tools and reporting available. There is no one prediction I can make, but instead a slew of marketing trends that are occurring and will continue to occur.
Here are my 10 predictions about the future of marketing:
More number list blogs and articles will continue to appear. Get used to it.
Articles will increasingly be brand sponsored and endorsed heavily as ad banners don’t work and have yet to prove much value beyond awareness (even that is debated).
The marketer will continue to be the biggest spender on IT services for the next couple of years. (They have a long way to go to learn about how the technology works and the value.)
Technologies will bridge and de-silo sales and marketing teams across enterprise companies.
SMB’s will see the greatest growth in revenues as marketing technologies have significantly dropped in price and are more easily accessible and use. (Look at Hubspot’s free CRM and their integrated marketing platform - not a plug, just the truth.)
Your best marketing person will know sales.
Your best salesperson will know marketing automation.
Digital ad spend will slow in growth as more analytical tools are leveraged to create more hyper targeted and personalized marketing.
Your personal brand and digital footprint will be the most valuable thing to career growth and the growth of the company you work with.
There will be a study on how reading number listed articles leads to depression because it overly simplifies our life.
Marketers today don’t just get to come up with a clever billboard or a catchy phrase for their clients anymore- goodbye Mad Men. Most marketers are already required to look at data and understand how their entire funnel consumes insights and knowledge about the products they are selling and the value of their customers. These predictions form the foundation of some major shifts in the marketing industry: our future will be increasingly connected, marketing activities will be hyper-targeted and localized, and the experience of advertising will become increasingly synonymous with everyday life.