Marketing trends and what you should focus on in 2017

There’s no shortage when it comes to predictions of what’s going to be big in marketing this year. Practitioners and industry experts have produced numerous articles on the subject so here are some common themes that they agree on:

Content marketing (1,2) will continue to be important as part of an integrated marketing strategy. The consumption of visual content will also continue to increase (3). As customers battle against the torrent of content that they receive daily, their attention span will shorten. Visual content, which is quicker to process, will grow in importance. Both visual imagery (e.g. infographics) and video content is predicted to increase and companies are mooted to begin to experiment with live streaming video and visual storytelling (2).

While customer centric marketing should always be the focus, successful businesses will need to do more to personalise communication so that the customer experience is specific, personal and presents relevant content, if they are going to be heard above the content commotion. The trend to move away from a one size fits all approach (4) to a more personalised one, where customers feel as though a company or brand truly understands them (2), will continue.

Pressure to measure the return on marketing investment will increase (4) and will be more closely tied to business objectives such as profit, revenue, customer retention, and satisfaction (3). One of the consequences of this additional pressure to measure effectiveness will be an increase in the importance of roles such as marketing technologists and data scientists. They will be a vital resource for analysing the effectiveness of channels such as email, social media and mobile to measure marketing ROI. A related trend is the adoption of zero based budgeting by some leading organisations like Unilever and Diageo (5,6). Under zero-based budgeting marketing teams will have to justify spending on each activity rather than have budgets based on the previous year’s spend. The pressure is on for marketing to prove its value in 2017.

Zenith estimates 75% of internet use in 2017 will be on mobile (7) so marketers will need to think about digital communication in terms of adaptive formats that will allow customers to view content seamlessly on a mobile, tablet or desktop. Customers will continue to choose the time, place and means of content consumption. To paraphrase CMO.com; “first, it was mobile-friendly. Then it became mobile-first and now it’s rapidly becoming mobile only” (8).

The ramp-up in the use of artificial intelligence in the form of digital assistants and chatbots is linked to increased mobile usage as voice based internet searches become more convenient for people on the go. Forrester noted that 45% of U.S. adults navigate online using assistants such as Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, or Alexa, which are mainly accessed on their mobile phones (9). Chatbots have the potential to enhance the customer experience as the chat interface is potentially a more natural interface than text based interfaces. However, they should be part of a wider customer experience plan otherwise they risk becoming a gimmick.

One of the most profound predictions is that marketing will go back to basics in 2017. Lastminute.com’s Alessandra Di Lorenzo says that “using that data to inform real insights and going back to basics” (4) will be a key trend in 2017. Microsoft’s Paul Davies echoed a similar sentiment when he talks about the re-emergence of the art of the marketing discipline. He says “We will see the pursuit of bold, ambitious unifying concepts under which all campaign tactics sit together, with bright ideas back at the heart of the marketing engine.” (4)

Among all the hype and augury at the start of a new year there has never been a greater need to take a step back and review the way we approach marketing.

A recent Content Marketing Institute (10) study indicated that 89% of B2B marketers surveyed use content marketing but only 37% have a content marketing strategy. Arguably the lack of strategy is a key reason why only 22% of those surveyed characterise their organization’s current overall content marketing approach as very or extremely successful. The other 78% say that their efforts are moderately, minimally or not at all successful.

During a webinar entitled the Life Science Digital Maturity Index, Hamid Ghanadan of the Linus Group presented data which showed that the digital maturity index for the Life Sciences industry is relatively low. On the 5 point scale*, CRM was the most advanced capability reaching “aligned” status while the other 4 factors (website, engagement, marketing automation and measurement) were assessed to be only “tactical” (11). Marketing for most companies in the Life Science industry still has a long way to go.

To make the most of your marketing in 2017 we suggest taking time to assess your business’ digital maturity against key factors such as the 5 proposed by the Linus Group. An honest assessment of strengths and weaknesses can then be used to determine what skills and infrastructure you need to invest in to be able to move your organisation towards more advanced digital capabilities. While you need to be cognisant of marketing industry trends, a realistic assessment of your capabilities as the foundation for a sound strategy, is bound to give you a better return on your marketing investment in 2017.

*Note- scale: 1= basic, 2=tactical, 3=aligned, 4=strategic, 5= advanced.

Sources:

1. SmartInsights: The Top 14 marketing techniques in 2017?

2. Entrepreneur.com: Top 8 Marketing Trends That Will Define 2017

3. Forbes: The Top 10 Trends Driving Marketing In 2017

4. Marketing Week: Marketers make their predictions for 2017

5. Marketing Week: Diageo: Zero-based budgeting is ‘the new normal’

6. Marketing Week: Unilever defends zero-based budgeting as emerging markets provide cheer for Q1

7. ZenithMedia: Zenith forecasts 75% of internet use will be mobile in 2017

8. CMO.com’s Top 10 Marketing Trends For 2017

9. Forrester: The State Of Chatbots, Pilot Chatbots As Part Of Your App+ Mobile Strategy October 20, 2016

10. Content Marketing Institute: B2B Content Marketing: 2017 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America, Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs