What We Can Expect in 2018
Hopefully, the only long winter we’ll be seeing will be onscreen in Westeros and providing this is the case, there’s some online marketing trends to get ready for.
Bridging the talent gap
Digital market is always moving so lots of people get left behind. Using outmoded techniques is a major cause of failed campaigns, so old-style marketers should add digital strings to their bows. More companies should increase their digital marketing training budgets as well as bringing in specialists to work alongside their own jacks of all trades.
More social marketing
Social marketing is low-cost, high impact marketing and a current trend is to promote content and stories in Facebook’s feed without going through publishers first. This may or may not involve offering discounts to any end-users or consumers who share a photo of themselves using/eating/wearing the company product.
More video marketing
We have loads of vloggers now and they have huge followings. This goes to show that all you need is a Go-Pro and a bit of imagination; you don’t need a huge budget. This means it’s the audience-savvy, imaginative and adaptable people who will be getting all the work in 2018. They know what the punters want and how to give it to them so they keep coming back.
In-store marketing
We’re not talking about the gaudy orange signs bearing the legend “Orange’s: 3 for $1” here. It’s a bit more sophisticated than that and it involves real-store promotions, location services, analytics, shopping history and good old marketing.
Done right, 2018’s in-store marketing will see customers getting pings as they walk the aisles to tell them what offers are on, or to offer them vouchers, coupons, airmiles or whatever floats that person’s boat. Almost 75% of Millennials say they’d welcome this marketing – it certainly beats coupon clipping.