Predictions for 2018 from Forbes
Forbes queried 15 members of their panel to come up with what the near future is likely to be for digital marketing. Here are their predictions for 2018:
- Integration of AR (augmented reality) into social media, which is probably going to happen since it’s almost a reality in leading-edge firms now.
- The death of influencers. This is something I wrote about recently (and it was fairly controversial). In that post, I wrote that influencer marketing isn’t delivering on ROI. The experts agree with me and we’ll see brands seriously scale back on spending to use only a few influencers that really deliver rather than just create brand awareness.
- The deeper understanding of the customer journey. Brands will do better mapping of the journey and match content to where the customer is on their personal journey. This increases the impact of data and, more importantly, developing insights from that data.
- Conversational interfaces such as Alexa.
- Native advertising, which refers to advertainment integrated into the user’s social media experience.
- Increasing use of predictive algorithms to optimize marketing strategies.
Media Post Communications: trends for 2018
Meanwhile, Mediapost jumped in with their predictions for 2018. Contrary to Forbes and my own assessments, Mediapost is still bullish on influencer marketing. So, you have to make your own decision as to whether this strategy is good for your brand.
Among their reasons is this statement:
There are so many benefits to pairing with strong influencers: you gain instant authority in your field, you build up your credibility, you develop trust among the influencer’s peers, and you gain social proof.
While that may be true, consumers know that influencers are often no better than paid spokespeople and doubt their opinions come from a considered evaluation of the product or brand.
Mediapost is also hot for mobile geofencing. Geofencing refers to using the GPS provided by a consumers smartphone to determine their location and customize offers based on that location. This ability makes local marketing easier and more profitable.
Like Forbes, Mediapost likes personalizing the customer experience and using personal assistants to help promote sales. For instance, Wal-Mart offers customers a $25 credit when they order using the Google Home personal assistant. This makes the effective cost of the Google Home mini $4.
CMO predictions for 2018
CMO made 8 predictions for 2018 regarding digital marketing. Just like Forbes, they asked a number of leaders from MarTech and summarized their answers. Here are CMO’s predictions for 2018:
- Like the others, mobile is mentioned as a big driver of profits for 2018, but their take is a little more nuanced. Here’s what they say about mobile:
Rather than focusing in on mobile, or other single channel experiences, we need to create better, more fluid multi-channel and multi-platform experiences. The experience from desktop to mobile to wearable to voice-activation to in-store will need to feel consistent.
- Re-establishing trust with the consumer. According to Forrester, consumer trust in brands is at an all-time low and brands need to gain that trust back by owning brand value and providing more “personalized, distinct, and authentic” brand experiences.
- CMO is the first to predict the increased role of artificial intelligence and machine-learning in deriving insights from data. 2018 might be the turning point dividing those who use data intelligently from those who don’t, leading to the demise of firms that aren’t data-driven.
- Increasing use of Blockchain technology to provide trust in the reliability of communications, the security of our data, and to separate misinformation from the truth. (I’ll post more on blockchain in my next post, so if this is confusing, come back).
- CMO also predicts a blurring between martech and adtech, which we’ve already seen narrowing over time.
- The remainder of their predictions for 2018 mirror those already discussed.
Need Marketing Help?
We welcome the opportunity to show you how we can make your marketing SIZZLE with our data-driven, results-oriented marketing strategies. Sign up for our FREE newsletter, get the 1st chapter of our book on digital marketing analytics – FREE, or contact us for more information on hiring us.
Hausman and Associates, the publisher of MKT Maven, is a full-service marketing agency operating at the intersection of marketing and digital media. Check out our full range of services.
