by Neha Thomas, head of marketing, Creative Zone
The only constant, in the world of business, is change. The ability to keep up with consumers’ tastes and socioeconomic trends are the most dominant factors as to why companies are mandated to advance their marketing styles and strategies to keep up with the market’s constantly evolving nature.
Since the early 1800s, the concept of marketing has been present, but the way of doing it has evolved in the past decades. During these years, it was evident that there are two (2) reasons why marketing trends continue to evolve:
First, it is the endless increase in consumer needs and demands. Customer is the heart of any business. Understanding and keeping up with what they need and want will determine the progress of a business. In short, customers dictate what and where you need to improve in terms of your business processes.
Second is the advancement of the MarTech tools. Through the 1900s, most marketing was done through print advertising, but in today’s age, digital marketing leverages technologies ranging from video content, and promotional emails, to AI and virtual reality formats. This proves that traditional marketing relies heavily on the product and service, while modern marketing’s concept is more customer-centric.
To stay relevant and ahead of the curve in the future, companies need to identify, formulate, and execute new marketing strategies to be able to build a niche and build a community of loyal consumers.
Below are a few key areas that would help get started to adapt to the future of marketing.
Conversational Marketing An article by McKinsey in 2021 shows that 71 per cent of customers expect businesses to deliver personalised interactions, while 76 per cent become frustrated when this doesn’t happen. This indicates that today’s customers expect real-time and more personalised company interactions. Using live chats, messaging apps, and chatbots as a way of having a conversation with customers is key to providing them with an immediate response to their questions, inquiries, and requests. This also becomes an avenue for companies to gain and build customer trust. However, it is important to invest in good AI chatbot apps to get connected to customers on an emotional level.
Conversational marketing is also time and cost-efficient for companies. It helps store data, including customer profiling, customer purchase, and segmentation, which companies can analyze and review for future reference.
At present, conversational marketing largely contributes to growth in sales, revenue, and customer loyalty, which will continue to be one of the marketing trends in the next 5-10 years.
Social media and influencer marketing
The ideal place to put up customer-targeted promotions is in platforms where audiences are clustered, and this is where social media comes as the best option. As of 2021, there are about 4.48 billion social media users around the world. Putting up advertisements on social media channels, including YouTube, Meta, TikTok, and other types of podcast and video platforms increases the viewership of a product or service, which leads to possible higher sales.
The dramatic increase in the use of social media after the breakthrough of the Covid-19 pandemic has also given a massive boost to Influencer Marketing. Tapping influencers to promote brands is proven to generate positive ROI. Influencers are trusted figures within a niche community and have a large following. Influencers are known as masters of their field of specialisation. That’s why promoting brands through their social media channels results in promotional authenticity, greatly influencing many audiences.
According to HubSpot Blog Research, roughly 58 per cent of marketers said influencer marketing was the most effective marketing trend in 2021, ahead of SEO, experiential marketing, and short-form video content. In 2022, 86 per cent of marketers plan to continue investing the same or increased amount in influencer marketing. This is aligned with the present and the future generation of customers.
Gen Z’s, born between 1995 – 2009, and Gen Alphas, born between 2010 – 2024, are expected to use social media where marketing influencers build their channels.
AI-approach of marketing
The use of Artificial Intelligence for marketing has been around for a long time now, but a dramatic increase in using AI has visibly been seen during the last 2 years. According to Forbes findings, 75 per cent of enterprises using AI and machine learning in 2018 were able to enhance customer satisfaction by 10 per cent. The fast and seamless response from AI marketing tools helps companies in their customer retention.
AI-powered chatbots are now considered the next big thing in customer relations management due to their ability to personalise requests and process complex transactions. Response and decision-making would be less complex and more straightforward, depending on customers’ past and present data insights. By 2025, companies are expected to use a complex of personal, location, and environment data that can effectively target customers.
Virtual reality marketing
Enterprises are now opting for full Virtual Reality marketing to provide a more immersive experience for their customers. Although VR marketing tools tend to be a bit expensive, it is still becoming more prevalent. Consumer and enterprise VR market revenue is expected to reach $6.71 billion by the end of 2022 and $12.9 billion by 2024.
Companies are investing in VR to build a better rapport with customers. Offering a product or service through engaging advertising and virtual storytelling can help customers better understand the product and service.
Short video content marketing
Like in virtual marketing, customer interactions are increased through creative content advertising. Currently, more than 31 per cent of global marketers are investing in short-form video content, while 46 per cent consider this an effective strategy.
In the past, companies produced long video content for a more detailed explanation of their products and services. However, with platforms like TikTok, YouTube Reels, and IG stories, shorter video advertisements are now preferred because of their direct and straightforward messaging nature.
Blockchain and NFT marketing
When you hear the term ‘Blockchain’, buying, selling, and trading cryptocurrencies usually come to mind. But in the future, blockchain technologies and NFTs will also greatly impact Marketing. Simply because blockchain technologies can address the following issues that other marketing trends or strategies cannot.
Added security and data privacy
In 2021 alone, the cost of data breaches increased from $3.86 million to $4.24 million and is expected to increase in the upcoming years. In marketing and business, using blockchain technologies can provide added security measures by recording, verifying, and encrypting blockchain transactions. This would prevent data from being sold or stolen. In this way, companies can establish greater trust with their clients.
Prevention of advertisement fraud
A study by Forrester found that 69 per cent of brands that spend over $1 million per month in ads reported that at least 20 per cent of their budgets got lost to digital ad fraud. The best way to prevent and resolve this is through blockchain technologies. Blockchain uses stringent user verification, which tracks who engages with your ads. The combination of blockchain transparency and accountability can reduce advertising fraud and help businesses achieve greater results for their digital spending.
Voice search and content optimisation
The rise in voice search has opened new doors for business and marketing. According to a recent study by PwC, 65 per cent of 25-49-year-olds use voice-enabled searches at least once per day (e.g., while driving).
Since voice search is integrated into our daily indispensable gadgets like mobile phones, it is important to consider SEO-optimised content for voice searches. Marketers should now start thinking about what pieces of information, keywords, and phrases customers might verbally ask.
Since voice search technologies are handy, it is also expected to boost productivity.
The rising trends in marketing tools are growing in an exponential way and it is important for any marketer to analyze the changing customer behaviour patterns and implement them in any business environment just to stay ahead and relevant for the days ahead.
