3 Marketing Trends That Will Become Bigger Buzz Words in 2014
Some current marketing trends show signs of continued strength in 2014, and many appear to be set to become even more important to the contemporary marketer. Here are three marketing trends that are poised to undergo further refinements and become bigger factors over the coming year.
- Social media: As participation in platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest continue to increase, social media is going to remain a major force in sales and marketing, customer service and market building. However, with some social media players leaning toward monetization and more ads, customer participation and the benefit that marketers can expect will be affected. The trend will be for companies to take a closer look at their social media participation to identify and expand what works and eliminate what doesn’t. Social media will become driven more by practical goals such as brand awareness, lead generation, and customer communication than by the attitude of “everyone’s doing it, so I must too.”
- Marketing integration: Companies often make sharp distinctions in budgeting and processes for individual marketing areas such as email marketing, social media participation, content marketing and smartphone and mobile device marketing. In 2014, it’s expected that the trend will be for these formerly distinct areas to be integrated into a larger overall marketing platform that will take advantage of both individual strengths and combined effectiveness of multiple marketing venues. Start thinking of how you can budget for and combine the best parts of a social media and direct marketing campaign, for example, to use them to their best advantage.
- Use of market research and “big data”: The use of extensive consumer research and the “big data” that provides a thorough customer profile will likely expand in 2014, especially as these research results and technologies become affordable for smaller companies. This access to research will allow companies to identify market segments that can be approached with the type and amount of marketing that will be most effective for that target population. Companies are also starting to realize they can personalize so much more of their marketing media if they have the right information in their database.
How can you use these developing trends to refine and expand your marketing goals for 2014?
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