The past decade has seen a paradigm shift across sectors due to the exponential rate of digital-led growth. The world today has embraced technology as an essential part of everyday activities. Data and social media will dictate marketing content. Shortened attention spans will pave the way for snippety visuals as the most successful means of communication.
The growth of digital avenues of marketing will continue to influence the way we do business. The world is set to go fully digital in the coming decade and digital marketing firms must adapt their strategies accordingly. The ability to analyze data that is constantly being generated will be the primary skill that allows for such strategies to be designed.
Where will all this data come from? From a marketing standpoint, social media is the answer. The rapid growth of Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram as platforms for personal as well as professional content has led to an expansion of opportunities for marketing. Brands have the power of social media and this is only bound to increase in the next decade as newer platforms like TikTok emerge. Such a diversity of platforms has also leveled the playing field, allowing smaller brands to compete
The key takeaways from the popularity of Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, in particular, are two-fold: The reduction in attention spans leading to the need for short, catchy content and the emergence of visuals, be they static images or videos, as the most successful means of communication.
Content in bite-size chunks, hence, will become an important marketing tool as it can be shared across platforms with minimal adjustments. Snapchat exemplifies this trend through its use of short videos that disappear in a day, creating a class of ‘transient marketing’ that hits the sweet spot on the scale of audience attention. This form of marketing, when transferred over to other platforms, allows for strengthening brand messages and prolonging retention times.
Audiences have changed and will continue to change with respect to the ways in which they interact with brands today. The rise in the population of digital has led audiences to become much more discerning, a fact that organizations must keep in mind while designing future communication.
Consumption patterns have shifted; today’s consumers look to purchase experiences rather than merely products, tying quality and relatability with how a brand is perceived. The ability to deliver these experiences in a smooth, engaging manner will be a major factor in determining a brand’s market performance.
Building trust is set to be the next important challenge that marketing firms must look to address. Unlike in the past, audiences will define their trust in a brand through a blend of their own interactions with the brand and their discussions with others who have interacted with the same brand. Audiences today learn from and trust each other when it comes to evaluating brand reputations, making it important for marketing firms to cater to individuals rather than communities.
Personalization will soon become a mandatory part of the strategies they adopt, given the depth of data currently being collected and analyzed. This will allow firms to design communication that can be targeted at customers individually.
The relentless pace of technological growth will ensure that such personalized experiences come closer and closer to audience expectations. It may even be possible in the future for audiences to merely think of their needs before marketing firms deliver them instantaneously.
This data will involve not only insights drawn from search engine databases but from voice recognition technology as well. This will allow marketing firms to not only learn how to adapt to emerging forms of communication but also optimize interactions with customers to create a seamless experience that will ultimately contribute to a better return on investment. In all of this, the ultimate aim for marketing firms is to deliver end-to-end experiences with highly personalized communication.
The next decade is sure to bring greater than opportunities for innovation in the marketing space as organizations look to expand their capabilities to cover the cycle of brand creation, promotion, and sustenance. Midwest Marketing is here to provide the marketing tips you need to become greater than.
