8 Trends Driving Marketing in 2017

Visibility is one aspect of marketing that won’t change over the years. As we begin a new year, there are certain trends that we at Big Marlin Group believe will drive marketing in 2017.

1. Increased Focus on Customer Experience

This is the heart of marketing today for almost every industry. Successful businesses must embrace customer-centric philosophies to create effective marketing strategies and campaigns. If your customers are not top-of-mind, then what is?

2. Engaged and Effective Measuring

Analytics and being able to measure your marketing efforts is vital. Data needs to tell a complete story and without measuring your results, there is no story to tell. If you use marketing for your business ask yourself this, if you cannot measure what you are doing, how will you know the results? Look carefully at the non-measurable tasks to make sure you are spending your marketing dollars right.

3. Personalized Everything

As everything in today’s marketplace has become personalized, businesses need to ensure that their efforts are specific and individualized. If anything, you can at least streamline your processes to make your website and advertising more targeted to specific audiences. Making sure your website is continually updated with content is important. This allows you to speak directly to consumer’s pain points as they search for solutions or products to fit their needs. Adding content to your website can come in many ways, including blog post development, industry news articles, webinars and videos.

4. Better (and More) Video Content

Obviously, content still rules the world, but it is important to understand that the type of content is changing. Social media content, reviews, and blogs are all still crucial aspects of marketing, that every business needs, but at Big Marlin we believe video will be the rage moving forward. When setting up your marketing campaign, including video allows your business to increase its brand awareness and customer loyalty. You can start by using a social media platform, such as Facebook, to either upload videos or participate in live streaming videos promoting your business. Expect virtual and augmented reality to take us into the future.

5. Impact of Social Media

Social media strategies are starting to focus on selling more and marketing less. It is also becoming more personalized too. Businesses need to use social media to engage with consumers, not blast messages. Content promotion through social media is also a great way to connect with consumers. When you understand what audience your business wants to target, you can effectively share content using social media platforms.

6. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Goes Mainstream

Providing positive customer experience and service means leveraging the power of technology. Imagine a system that knows your likes, dislikes, and needs which then guided you where to eat, travel, shop, etc. Using AI and deep learning can make this a reality, and it is already happening!

7. Real-Time Marketing

Keeping an eye out for the opportunity to market and show customers your value at any moment is extremely important for businesses. Of course, having structure with your marketing campaigns is important, but don’t be afraid to live in the moment! Think of Oreo’s ‘Dunking in the Dark’ campaign used during the Super Bowl blackout in 2013. This also includes live streaming video which we mentioned in the growth of video content. Using real-time marketing allows your business to connect to consumers during any situation.

8. Embrace IoT

Expect businesses to leverage the power of billions of connected devices, a marketer’s dream! The most important part is to make the data useful from the devices. While IoT adds value to the products we already own and the services we already use, the data extracted from IoT is meant to tell marketers what we’ll want to own and what services we’ll use in the future. The issue is IoT can’t learn from the information it generates. That’s where AI and deep learning comes into place. This will change how we leverage technology and data.

Make sure your business is staying up-to-date and recognizing the potential opportunities in the ever-changing marketing world. At Big Marlin Group, we can help your business stay ahead and steer you in the right direction when it comes to embracing change. Contact us today to learn more!