Marketing Trends to look forward to in 2016
Piyush Jain
IIM Shillong
Looking back at the start of 2015, most of the marketing
predictions were centred around social marketing. Then digital marketers wanted
to know which traditional social networking platforms would get more expensive
and which new social sites to exploit. Social media still works, but it’s
important to look deeper into how people are using these platforms and not just
which ones are popular at the moment.
So let’s see what 2016 might have in store for us in terms
of marketing trends as predicted by Daniel Newman in an Forbes article and
Kenneth Gillett in business2community to name a few. Digital marketing trends
will be something to look forwards to this year also but at the same time there
will be other ways and other things to look at. Like content marketing is
becoming increasingly visual. As we transition into 2016, it’s time to think
about which visual marketing trends are most likely to stick around. Though new
techniques and ways are coming up every year but there are some traditional
techniques that are an absolute must. Fashions, technology, and Internet user
preferences can change in a flash. Still, some traditional marketing tactics
have translated very well from offline to online.
Meanwhile, marketers get to enjoy an exciting ride, but they
need to adapt quickly or risk falling off. So let’s have a look at a few trends
that we should take a note of in 2016.
Top Marketing trends
Embrace the Customer
Experience Model:
It’s been a slow grind for some, but marketing departments
are moving from a silo of advertising and non-interactive communication toward
becoming a natural part of the sales cycle and an extension of customer
service. Marketers, using integrated tools, can engage with customers online,
track the buyer’s journey, measure sentiment and loyalty, and match behavior
with outreach tailored to meet their audience’s needs and interests. But for
customers already bombarded with information, a great customer experience is
becoming baseline.
Content is still the
King:
It may sounds like a
broken record, but content is still king—even more so given the deterioration
of interruptive tactics. But context is a stronger factor than ever. With no
decline in sight for the importance of good content, the next year will see
greater focus on bringing influencers on board for more organic marketing.
Storytelling will also play a key role in drawing consumers in and keeping them
engaged. Natural, relevant content in the right channels will drive content
campaigns.
Big Data IS for
Marketers:
Big data, which includes social and unstructured data, is a
goldmine for marketers. Until recently, many marketers shied away from big data
because they lacked the skills—or the big budget resources—to translate it into
something meaningful. Now, tools are coming to the marketplace that make mining
and managing data easier than ever. 2016 will be a banner year for
incorporating big data and perhaps more importantly, analytics into marketing
decisions.
Omni channel Will
be Retail’s Best Friend:
Tweet for Pizza! Dominos has one of the catchiest Omni channel
campaigns right now, but brands across the board will quickly learn that an
integrated customer experience is essential—one that creates one smooth
interaction, rather than multiple micro events. From addressing the causes
behind abandoned shopping carts to creating an easy transition between online
and bricks-and-mortar locations, Omni channel will improve the bottom line for
both retailers and B2B.Digital Marketing
The year 2015 has been the year of digital marketing and it
will be in the news in 2016 as well. There will be new developments happening
in this space and will most probably take away the major chunk of the company’s
marketing budget. So let’s look at some of the game changing digital marketing
trends that we might witness in 2016.
· Influencer
Marketing:
Influencer marketing is considered to be the
most rapidly expanding way to acquire new customers. Recent surveys suggest
that getting authorities or celebrities to mention or promote products might
grow faster than SEO, PPC ads, and content marketing. Tactics to attract
influencers vary, but they might include sending free products to review,
offering cross promotion, or simply paying a fee. Many brands have already
capitalized on this and others are following.
· Increased
spending on organic social marketing:
Organic social media is based on the assumption that you
have to earn your way into the newsfeed with great content that people love.
Most organic social media posts aren’t directly selling, because selling is
rarely interesting enough to drive engagements. In the Adweek survey, 70
percent of marketers planned to spend more on using content marketing to
increase their social presence. Attracting attention via useful or entertaining
content can complement social media ad spend.
·
Going
mobile:
In May of 2015, Google already
announced that mobile traffic outpaced laptop and desktop traffic in several
countries, including the US. It’s interesting to note that that Smart
Insights data suggests that the average time spent on a PC isn’t really
decreasing. Rather, time spent on cell phones and other mobile devices is
increasing rapidly. That means that it’s important to make sure you have an
effective mobile design, but it’s not time to abandon updates for your laptop
and desktop site.
·
Video
will become critical for digital advertising success:
Most marketers have already explored the power of uploading
video ads to sites like YouTube and promoting them via social media. In
addition, Google is testing using video ads in their PPC search ads, and these
are expected to debut soon. Platforms like Facebook already have paid video
ads, and they’re performing well enough to be a new standard in the marketing
mix.Visual Marketing
As mentioned above digital advertising will be on the rise
and video will be one of the things that is going to drive it. It is nothing
but Visual marketing to use a broader term and much has been clear for a while
that is rising. From branded video content to the revitalization of email
marketing, visual marketing will be a key component of the successful
marketer’s 2016 strategy.
·
Use of
Animated GIFs on Social:
As many social media marketers and avid users have
recognized, animated GIFs and short videos have become pervasive over the
course of 2015. If you look at Twitter, the majority of its
best-performing content involves some kind of visual element.
This gravitation toward visual posts is based on human
preferences. The average person’s attention span in 2015 was 8.25 seconds.
Thus, most social media users aren’t going to read an entire article; they
simply want the basics.
GIFS, or bite-sized animations, are ideal for telling
stories in a short timeframe. The motion in these images also gives them an
advantage in vying for attention in crowded newsfeeds.
Also look for Vine video clips, which are six-second
truncated videos, to rise in popularity. Vine is already extremely popular with
the general public, but brands have yet to fully adopt it. This will likely
change in 2016.
·
Real-Time
Storytelling Via Live-Stream Social:
Thanks to Meerkat and Periscope, an entirely new social
medium came into existence in 2015. Known as real-time storytelling or
live-stream social, these video platforms enable users to live-stream videos to
their followers.
Periscope may already seem big, but expect the platform to
explode in 2016. It offers the perfect blend of social media and video that
progressive digital marketers have been looking for.
Also we can expect to see a lot of brands doing sneak peeks,
product presentations, celebrity takeovers, live question-and-answer sessions,
behind-the-scenes footage, contests, and more. If you’re a digital marketer,
the possibilities created by social live-streaming are exciting. It’s the
future of the industry, and it’ll be intriguing to see how live-stream social
evolves in 2016.
·
Video
Will Revitalize Email Marketing:
Though email marketing is still very much alive, its power
has waned in recent months because more attention is being given to evolving mediums
such as social media. Still, expect video to revitalize email marketing in
2016.
Marketers will rely less on heavy text content and more on
videos that encourage recipients to interact with their brands. The key
to successfully using video in email depends on the quality of the
video and its length.
·
Videos on
Home Pages and Product Pages:
While off-site videos on YouTube and other publishing
platforms are valuable as mentioned above, you’ll see more and more video
content migrate to branded URLs. Marketers will continue to find ways to
integrate video into web design and make pages less static and more immersive. There
are two specific places where video will likely surface, i.e., Home pages and Product
pages. You’ll also see more video content used on landing pages and “About
Us” pages. Textual content won’t disappear completely, but we can expect video
to permeate web design much further in the coming months.
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