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Tag: trends

  • 5 Things To Watch For In 2016

    5 Things To Watch For In 2016

    I don’t normally do predictions and prognostications about the future, because even the most informed and engaged “futurists” are at least half wrong on a terrific day. If you go back and review their predictions with 10 years of hindsight, usually they were either dead wrong – not good for career development as a futurist – or the predictions now, in hindsight, seem rather vague or are broad enough to be interpreted in a number of ways, one of which might be construed as having some to fruition. Either way, such prognostication is best left to carny acts at the State Fair rather than being used as a business decision-making tool. However, as the new year looms, I feel compelled to at least point out some observances that seem to be gaining positive momentum and seem fairly sensible in the broader context of marketing. So, here’s five things to keep an eye on:

     

    1. Data Gathering V.S. Privacy – Eventually privacy will win, but not next year. There is so much data out there available now on everyone, from a huge variety of sources, all self-proclaimed, that marketers can access it without having to invade anything more sophisticated than a social media page. That level of data availability will continue to increase, and the volume and type of data available will ramp up next year, as more software is launched, more apps are developed, and the digital sharing movement continues to grow in the new connected environment. Marketers will have to continue to run to try and reach the top of the curve and not get too far behind in the actual viable use of that data to produce results.

    2. The Clouds Gather – Storage on site at corporate buildings will continue to drop weight like Jenny Craig moved in next door, as storage needs are more easily accommodated in the Cloud. Data centers and other aggregating technologies will continue to supplant hard on-site storage for firms under a billion in annual sales. Now cyber security exercises will have to beef up accordingly to provide the security and trust the could requires to continue acceptance and growth.

    3. Old Will Become New Again – In a sense, marketing is like fashion, if something sticks around long enough it will circle back around and become popular again. Like hemlines or trouser cuffs, marketing tactics can be reborn as if it was discovered anew by the next generation of marketers. The speed of growth of content marketing will accelerate – at least until the end of this decade – but content marketing has been used since before the turn of the century – the last century! Ask John Deere, Betty Crocker, Jell-O and P&G, who used content marketing to sell products and stay top of mind, establish market dominance and cement their brands in the minds of buyers in a certain context, with great success. The biggest change is the speed of the distribution of that content. Modern digital marketers can get a “read” on the popularity and engagement level of their content before it converts to a sale, which allows for some adjustment and fine tuning that the old-school folks didn’t have available to them.

    4. The Message Becomes The Medium – FREE!  Big agencies will put in a greater level of effort on earned media and on visibility message marketing, as opposed to just paid advertising. The success of Donald Trumps nascent presidential campaign, driving him from neutral name recognition to leading the GOP field by a significant margin in under a year, after spending a paltry $1.8 million, shows how effective this approach can be. While agencies’ bread and butter will continue to be paid media, both traditional and digital, the earned and PR practices will take a larger role in the messaging scheme, will gain power and recognition for top brands that “get it” about how information travels in today’s connected world.

    5. Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’ – Going Mobile Becomes “Normal” – As the number of mobile searches continues to climb, and broadband becomes even more ubiquitous, and the number of smart devices proliferates, having a strong mobile component to your corporate web presence will become not just essential but standard. If your site doesn’t perform on a 5″ touch screen, you’ll be relegated to the digital dustbin quicker than your girlfriend’s MySpace account.

    2016 will be dubbed the year Content peaked, as the field gets crowded, the hackers learn to generate more targeted content in a mass contact way without human intervention. Computer as author is everyone’s fear, there’s enough published by humans already to circle the globe multiple times a day. We don’t need more, we need better – better engagement, better targeting, better relevance, better quality.

  • New Trends Not Always The Most Valuable

    New Trends Not Always The Most Valuable

    As a marketing consultant, I tend to observe things critically, find parallels and patterns in everything, to try and make sense of what I see and experience, so I can apply those learnings to client problems. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes, not so much.

    This morning, my young son Alex, was playing in the livingroom. At 4, he sort of wanders around the room, and when his eye catches something bright and shiny or something he remembers from yesterday’s play session that was fun, he makes a bee-line for the new toy, dropping whatever he’s got in his hand already. Even though the “old” toy was perfectly captivating just 10 seconds ago, suddenly it’s yesterday’s news and he drops it like its hot in favor of the “new” one.

    It dawned on me that some of my clients had exhibited this same behavior regarding their marketing and outreach activities. They were rolling along, sending out e-mail, sending out letters, engaging members or customers with their website, growing steadily, when someone pipes up in a meeting “Hey, why aren’t we on Twitter?” or “Why don’t we have a Facebook page?”

    Before you know it, the whole marketing and IT department is discussing profiles, and launching pages and starting accounts and firewalls and policies and a whole host of related and relevant topics, and before long, these items are in place and being used, to what end no one knows. With all this discussion going on, and activity stemming from that discussion, often there is little or no thought given to integrating this new activity into the existing marketing plan, to setting goals and metrics for those new programs to measure their effectiveness at meeting those goals. Without those elements in place, and really solid and well-researched answer to the questions “Why are we doing this, and how is it going to help us achieve our goals, and how will we know it’s working?”, going forward blindly is a recipe for at least needless unproductive activity, at worst brand damage and reputational damage for the company or organization.

    Non-profit organizations often have a history of behaving that way, although small to mid-size commercial businesses have been known to do this as well. They look a lot like my son, tossing aside what’s in place, even though it may be working, for the shiny, new, trendy, activity, regardless of it’s efficacy or effectiveness.

    The moral of the story is that while some of the new media channels and applications may look exciting and may be experiencing a groundswell of growth and popularity, it doesn’t mean that they are the correct or appropriate types of outreach activity through which to achieve your particular goals. You can spot this type of behavior easily. Simply ask them, “What do you use your Facebook page for?” or “What do you get out of your Twitter account?” It’s not even a matter of cost/benefit analysis, it’s more about aligning the mission of the organization with the tools and public outreach mechanisms you use to achieve the set goals. Twitter can be a nice, real-time market monitor for short term buzz and brand recognition, even customer service monitoring or PR effectiveness, but that’s more about listening than posting. Facebook can be a good way to build community around a product or service, but it has to be used carefully and with some constraints in place to maintain control of the voice and the brand. It may not be appropriate for it to be used to help drive sales or leads.

    If you are contemplating using new media tools, treat them and think about them much as you would any other service purchase – assess the needs, THEN go find the best tool for the job. Don’t go looking to add tools when you don’t know what the job is. Even Handy Manny knows to use only the right tool for the right job!

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