22’s Marketing Manager David reveals his predictions for what’s going to be big in the marketing world this year.
The year of the brochure
Print is not dead! You have read our recent email campaign informing you that printed literature such as brochures will be a huge part of B2B marketing this year. A well thought out brochure reinforces your brand identity and gives customers and prospects something ‘tangible’ to hold onto in the digital age. This helps create a more personalised feel and can ensure your offer is remembered amongst all the email marketing and Facebook ad campaigns. Ambitious companies combine these with their targeted digital marketing to get the best results.
Video will be big!
Use of social platforms continued to rise over 2016 and that’s likely to increase with integrated video marketing taking more of a front seat. Developments such as the ‘Facebook Live’ has offered that immediate real-time experience that clever companies are mixing in with social campaigns. Customers require attention right now and as such we will see ‘live chat’ become more mainstream across all sectors. Watch out for the term ‘immersive marketing’ (meaning bringing the consumer into the experience via video).
Social gets analytical
Social media marketing is still huge in many industries, however, marketing experts across the board believe that this year it’s due to get more detailed and granular with integrated CRM options and better reporting. Social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have dominated previously due to their potential for cleverly crafted ‘reach’ campaigns, in 2017 though we could see Instagram and Snapchat increase in B2C marketing as they leverage their remarketing offers.
Things get personal!
‘Big data’ has been a big thing for a while with it used globally for everything from the US presidential elections to the restructuring of frontline NHS services. In the case of the elections Team Trump was able to ascertain where the impact was the greatest to predict where to advertise to floating voters and monitor early voter demographics to see where disenfranchised rural and minority voters were less active and focus campaigns on higher voter turnout demographics). Big data may have been an ongoing trend but we are only really starting to see its full potential and so many in the marketing world think 2019 will be the year it increases personalisation. Big corporates such as Amazon and Netflix are already demonstrating the benefits of personalisation to increase customer experience and I can see some of the smaller but equally as ambitious brands start to go this way.
Augmented reality goes big
It goes without saying one of the biggest marketing successes of 2018 was Pokemon Go. Adult humans running around to obscure places on the hunt for Pokemon may have annoyed some of us but at $10m in revenue per day at its height it undoubtedly made the grade for ‘campaign success’. Following on from this I can envisage companies more actively using AR games, apps and experiences to engage consumers in a simulated version of reality. As the real world becomes ever more connected and digital with the increase of the ‘internet of things’ I see this becoming more and more popular.
Join me at the end of the year when I review how these predictions fared in the world of commerce and what failed to make the marketing grade!