The CMO’s A-Z List Of Modern Marketing Trends
What are the marketing buzzwords and big-picture topics affecting your brand? And how do your customers feel about it in the year ahead?
What are the marketing buzzwords and big-picture topics affecting your brand? And how do your customers feel about it in the year ahead?
Automation
The majority of marketers are seemingly looking to find the button that will handle online marketing for them automatically. The allure of this potential scenario is understandable, but you should be careful you don’t end up losing valuable connection points with your customers.
Beta Mode
From this point on, in what is a continuously changing world, your marketing efforts should be in constant test-and-evaluation mode.
Customer-Centric Marketing
Because people don’t care about your products or services—people care about what your brand can do for them.
Donald, The
Whatever you think of Mr. Trump, events before and after the election will shape our world for years to come.
Experience Design
To successfully design scenarios for how people experience your brand and interact with it requires an experience design capability. Whether that’s internally or externally, do you have this competence on board?
Fake News
With a growing consumer awareness that fake news and falsified content are widespread, people’s trust in your brand is more valuable than ever. Do people trust you, and how do you know that?
Global Warming
It seems the lines are being drawn for a confrontation regarding global warming, as well as an increased concern for the well-being of our planet. What does this mean for your brand?
Hackers
The internet is not a particular safe place, so how do you keep yourself and your brand safe from having your marketing secrets stolen or exposed?
Internationality
Being a brand of the world rather than just a brand of a single country will help you grow and get through the hard times. Do you have an international mindset?
Journey Mapping
Customer and audience journeys are the visualisation tool for understanding what happens step by step from one touch point with your brand to the next. Have you captured these yet?
Key Performance Indicators
Knowing and evaluating all your KPIs in your everyday marketing makes you smarter at getting the most out of your marketing investment—even when you do not meet your campaign goals. Do you know your KPIs?
Location
Marketers need to think about the context and whereabouts of their audiences, rather than just who they are and what channel or platform is used to reach them. Where are your customers when you meet them?
Mobile
By now, the world has gone largely mobile. Have you?
Native Content
Not copied, not just shared, but original content that has been created especially for your audience is key to making a difference in content marketing. Be relevant and relatable, and put in the effort to be more than just another channel of online white noise.
Omnichannel
Are you just doing channel versions of your content? Or are you doing integrated omnichannel marketing and using each channel for what it does best while creating interplay between the channels?
Personalisation
People do not want to be just a faceless number in the crowd, but want to be acknowledged as individuals, with their own hopes, dreams, and desires. Does this mindset come into play in your product development or marketing? Hint: bombarding some individual who dropped by your website with retargeted display ads doesn’t count.
Quality
Quality over quantity targeting will be necessary to create the conversion you need. Just look at retail, where the new reality—that traffic does not necessarily equate to sales—demands a shake-up in how retailers think about traffic.
Reboot
Many brands, not least in the retail industry, are past the point of a simple rethink of their business. Many companies now need to look at how to reboot and revitalise their brands, and take action—the sooner the better. Does your brand need a reboot?
Startups
Competition and inspiration can come from anywhere. Knowing what’s going on in the startup world and sometimes thinking like a startup is now critical.
Transformation
This is the key most brands will need to unlock their potential in a time of digital disruption. What are you doing to adapt your brand to a new business reality?
Uber
As a representative for the Sharing Economy, Uber embodies the struggle between the old and the new economies. Is there an Uber equivalent waiting to disrupt your business?
UX
User Experience is not just being used as a discipline within IT, but as a common phrase around the experience of customers. Are you getting on board?
Virtual Reality
It has been generating a lot of hype in technology and content production circles. The year 2017 is when VR has to mean something for audiences. What does it mean to your brand?
Workflow
Many marketers are still working based on mass communication disciplines and habits, and need to update their workflow to meet the needs of modern marketing.
X Factors
Even with all our analytics capabilities, there will always be x factors influencing the success of brands.
Y-Z Generations
The newer generations do not necessarily abide by the established rules of consumerism. This includes the elusive younger Millennials, who are not necessarily digital experts just because they are digital natives.
Zombies
They are not going anywhere soon. So you have to ask yourself what might be the next big thing in popular culture, and can your brand benefit from it in marketing terms? I mean, did you see that Gillette & Rogue One: A Star Wars Story campaign coming?
Happy New Year!