The marketing landscape is forever changing. Trends come and go at and ever growing rapid pace. It is important to keep your fingers on the pulse of the market so you can stay ahead of the changes curve. So what are the trends that are of note today?
Having partnered with leading corporations across a myriad of industries, our CEO Jay Kulkarni wanted share his thoughts. Below are the four trends that Jay believes will most impact marketing efforts of organizations around the globe in 2020. Trends that he personally believes are changing the game for marketers today. Explicitly those that he believes will have a massive impact on the marketing landscape in the very near future.
Here Are 4 Mega Trends Affecting Marketing Today
Integration
Integration one of the trends affecting marketing in a huge way. Current consolidation trends among martech and ad tech and the continued prominence of the big 4 “walled gardens,” points to a migration from stand alone channels to consolidated platforms. These robust consolidated platforms allow for engagement with individual customers across a multitude of touchpoints.
In other words, discrete, stand alone channels that offer niche services are on their way out. Being replaced with platforms that offer integration across channels along with vast capabilities.
If you haven’t already jumped on the integration train, I suggest you start planning. Take time to develop a roadmap that answers and aligns with company-specific initiatives. I can assure you this will assist in the integration process. Not to mention, help drive higher performance and better margins.
Identity
Another of the top trends affecting marketing today is identity. More specifically brand identity. With the rise of personalization comes a new definition of brand identity. It’s no longer about what a brand does. Instead, the focus is what a brand can do for the individual.
With this in mind, it is no wonder that platforms that offer connections to real people as opposed to aggregated audiences will get more traction. Along with this will come more regulation.
Today’s consumers exception to have in depth, personalized touch point interactions with brands, across multiple channels. The result of which is consumers sharing their PII with brands that win their trust.
Brands with this level of loyalty will be empowered to have personalized, one to one communication with their end “consumer,” as opposed to aggregated audiences.
This new identity trend has and is impacting marketing in so many ways. In the last few years alone, it has created a deeper level of communications with consumers that is setting the stage for 2020.
Speed
Additionally, speed is another one of the trends affecting marketing in a significant way. Current marketing initiatives are in different swim lanes. Specifically in the on line and off line world, segmented by different channels across social, mobile etc.
This “asynchronous” marketing will shift to communications with the end consumer in the here and now. In other words in a “contextual” setting.
The expectation of customers to have instant access to information 24/7 is constantly facilitating contextual based data sharing. Therefore, brands will be delivering information to consumers in real time, via the applicable channels.
As a matter of fact, the speed of data sharing is a trend that has been affecting marketing for years. It will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible into 2020 and beyond.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence has been a game changer in marketing since it’s inception. The capabilities AI continue to affect marketing in monumental ways. Notably, providing marketing teams the ability to predict the needs of their customers, through data utilization.
AI will help move marketing from diagnostic, look backwards to predict the future behavioral patterns to becoming more predictive in almost real time.
That being said, not all predictive needs to be in “real-real time”, even quasi real time will be a huge leap over the diagnostic approach.
There is no doubt, the affect this trend will have on the marketing landscape in 2020 will be great. The boundaries of what can be done with AI will be pushed farther then ever before.
In Summary
Personalization as a practice has come a long way from the early days of adding %%name%% to your email greeting. As technology evolves and the depth of data collection becomes infinite, so too will the personalization capabilities of our marketing efforts.
Keeping that in mind, it is key to keep up with the trends in personalization and allow your users to be your guide. The marketing game has always revolved around appealing to consumer wants and needs. The addition of personalization has taken the marketing teams ability to do that to a whole other level.
Consequently, understanding and integrated these trends into your organizations marketing is a sure fire way to stay ahead of the curve.
Evaluate how each trend affects marketing for your organization. From there, you can determine how best to embrace these transformations and prepare your brand for the year ahead.