Some Marketing Trends for 2012
06/01/2012 13:10:00 - Posted by
Marketing is moving at lightning fast which is why the world of marketing is so exciting but also remains challenging to the marketer.
None of us can predict what 2012 will bring for marketing but what we can say is that we can count on our customers and prospects to access the information they want, where and how they want it; right at their fingertips.
We’ve noticed that a number of our clients now want to communicate with their target audiences by using the right messages, and updates using the correct mediums and channels at precisely the right time. And we agree!
Marketing is always changing and it is now essential to expand social, mobile and local initiatives to ensure we are fulfilling the demand. It is now vital that the customers feel they are getting a more personalised experience from the channels they use.
Trend 1: Personalised, humanised content.
This is set to be probably the most important trend for 2012. With the new Google systems released which rely on new and fresh content; we must all now spend less time talking at our customers and more time noting their behaviours, comments and suggestions. While remaining professional we should be talking to our customers like they are a person. Nowadays we need to provide extra value to our customers rather than trying to shove products and unwanted, mostly irrelevant information at them at every opportunity.
One way of giving your company, products and services a personality is by giving your customers a voice. Make sure your testimonials are always visible. It is important to ask permission to publicise comments and when they are true, they immediately give your brand a personality. Customer comments are vital and perhaps one of the most valuable pieces of content you can have. Many prospect clients read testimonials before considering you for themselves. Also, current, up-to-date testimonials are great to show you have a continual relationship with your customers.
If you’re using social media, having a ‘team’ page is another good way to give your company/brand a personality. We all know that people do business with people and so through offering a friendly face customers can interact with will always do you the world of favours especially if you share Twitter or Facebook with a couple of other in the office as people can see who they’re talking to. If you deal with customers and prospects that are local and you network, having a photograph of yourself will immediately waver that awkward moment of scanning peoples name badges to find the person you’ve been chatting to!
Trend 2: We like it local!
Knowing where your target audience are at a specific time is valuable but none of us want to be followed around by service providers all day!
Location based marketing has been made easier recently because of social networking sites and the ability to add a location to their status and updates. More people are “checking in” on Facebook through their mobile phones and in doing so they are spreading brand awareness to people who they are friends with.
To use this to your advantage and boost sales and generate leads, we need to ensure that we integrate local initiatives with email and/or mobile marketing and social media in order to maximise your reach and in turn, increase revenue. When someone ‘checks in’ at your workplace or company, interact with them. By making their experience unique they are more likely to come back again and ultimately keep your brand in the spotlight.
To increase numbers to your Facebook page or mentioned on Twitter, why not hold a competition with a prize which will encourage people to want to do it? You see this a lot with comments such as ‘Like our Facebook page and you’ll be entered into our competition to win a…’ or ‘RT this post and you could win…we’ll announce the winner at…’.
Trend 3: Customer commitment is your life line.
We are all ‘busy’ and your customers and prospects are busier than ever which is why we are always on the hunt for ways to make things easier. On average, we will each receive over 5K marketing and advertising messages every single day! Without realising (and understandably) we tune out to these messages because they are either irrelevant, not engaging and/or there is no call to action. Winning new customers is imperative but keeping the clients you have interested, is just as important.
Using newsletters can be great for re-engagement by informing your customers that you are still there. Discussing news which is all about may not be the best route to go down though. Be informative about the sector you work in. Offer hint and tips, advice. Blogging is a great way to keep your site current but also try and keep your portfolio as up-to-date as possible too.
Ideally what we should do is engage with our contacts before we lose interest and the relationship becomes inactive. By ensuring all new customers are kept on a system in which you can follow up with them say in 6-8weeks ensures their engagement remains but is not seen as pestering.
Trend 4: Track them, learn about them, love them.
In the past marketers have focused on self-promotion and third party data in order to assess what it is their customers want. Now marketing is relying more and more upon listening and learning from their prospects on a one-to-one basis. This year, we are going to have to engage with new technology in order to collect data about our customer demographics, preferences and behaviours.
We are also going to have to monitor social behaviours to understand how to best communicate through these platforms. When we get our customers behaviours right, we will be in a position to deliver timely, relevant content which enables you to connect to individuals personally, relevantly and on a platform they enjoy. By web tracking you can vastly improve the user experience.
Trend 5: Get personal with your marketing
I’ve mentioned before that relevance is key well, using pURLS can enable you can provide relevant messages to each and every one of your prospects or customers. Personalised and relevant content helps your message stand out from the other 4,999 marketing messages your prospects see. You can read more about pURLs and gURLs on one of my latter blog postings here
Trend 6: The future is now. No, it really is.
Computer games have been around for almost 30 years and since then, graphics have become much more sophisticated since then. Game graphics are pushing the barriers of photorealism. Now, researchers and engineers are pulling graphics out of your television screen or computer display and integrating them into real-world environments. This new technology is called augmented reality. Augmented reality blurs the line between what's real and what's computer-generated by enhancing what we see, hear, feel and smell.
According to Wiki “AR is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one.”
Augmented reality is changing the way we view the world -- or at least the way its users see the world. Imagine walking or driving down the street. With augmented-reality displays, which will eventually look much like a normal pair of glasses, informative graphics will appear in your field of vision and audio will coincide with whatever you see. These enhancements will be refreshed continually to reflect the movements of your head. Sounds amazing right? Check out one of my favourite demonstrations of AR on YouTube, Marmite.
So, that’s our prediction(s). What do you think? Feel free to comment or chat to me on Twitter about any of the above… @WorkbrandsKelly - Happy 2012!