Personalization, video content and artificial intelligence are just some of the trends that ruled the marketing industry in 2017. This year, marketers focused on developing quality content, employing bots and connecting with customers through multiple mediums—but what trends are expected to dominate in 2018?
According to Hubspot’s State of Inbound 2017 report, “61% of marketers think their company’s marketing strategy works well,” focusing on methods like visual content, messaging apps, and artificial intelligence. The trends likely to dominate in the coming year include using personalized messaging and voice search, establishing trust in local markets, keeping a creative, human touch in marketing efforts, and more.
Take a look at what some industry experts predict for the world of marketing in 2018:
What Are Your 2018 Predictions for Marketing?
1. Jeanne Hopkins, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Ipswitch – @jeannehopkins
The top-of-the-funnel mindset causes ongoing tension between sales and marketing, leading to a lack of shared responsibility and accountability throughout the marketing teams. In 2018, instead of dividing the pipeline horizontally, organizations will divide it vertically, assigning sales and marketing duties at every stage of the sales funnel and buying process to boost accountability and outcomes. Marketing will take on greater responsibility for employees, prospects, and customers.
2. Dave Charest, Director of Content Marketing at Constant Contact
Continued marketing personalization, across all channels, is a trend marketers can’t ignore. While email marketing has traditionally been a one-to-many medium, it’s a great example of this trend being brought to life as we see an increase in customized messaging heading into 2018. A major catalyst behind this shift has been advances in personalization technology, especially click segmentation. As data collection capabilities continue to improve, we can expect email marketing in 2018 to become even more tailored to the customer – something particularly valuable to small businesses that often have a variety of products that don’t necessarily appeal to every customer.
3. Nick Edouard, Chief Product Officer at LookBookHQ – @nickedouard
In 2018, marketers will focus on a new class of data that answers one very important question: was your marketing content actually consumed? If marketers can start to answer that question, they can better evaluate every dollar they spend, every program they run, and every piece of content they create. At the most mature organizations, marketers will join this new class of data with other sources to create a unified view of their marketing performance. All of this data is also key to moving AI beyond the hype cycle and training machine learning technology so it’s actually useful to marketers.
4. Tabitha Jean Naylor, Owner of TabithaNaylor.com – @tabithanaylor
Small businesses are going to realize that their marketing strategies shouldn’t be about mimicking big brands, but should focus on building trust and credibility in the local market instead. It’s all about harvesting the opportunities in their own backyards.
This means paring down strategies to three or four that can work seamlessly together. You can’t throw a whole bunch of marketing ideas out there to see what sticks, because it costs a lot of money – and is a waste of time and resources.
In 2018, people are going to be smarter about their marketing, and retire bright shiny object syndrome.
5. Adam Rivietz, Co-founder/CSO of #paid – @hashtagpaid
The biggest trend that we’ve been seeing and where we’re seeing the most traction is data-driven decision as a result of utilizing big data. For us, that means influencer marketing evolves beyond the days of having an agency who has a media list of influencers and inviting those they have relationships with. The best marketers are combining the use of big data—including their audience demographics, reporting metrics, and influencers are priced—with relationships and the nuances of each person. Big data will help add sophistication and precision to influencer marketing.
6. Samantha Paxson, Chief Marketing and Experience Officer at CO-OP Financial Services – @SamSmythPaxson
Digital transformation – Employees must switch to a digital mindset and pick up new skills in order to cope with the rapidly changing digital world and consumer ecosystem.- The relationship economy – Seamless and secure digital experiences create trust with customers. Companies will need to shift to this model by understanding the new currency, being human in a digital world, responding to criticism with transparency, rewarding loyalty with personalized experiences, and being customer-centric.
- Data and AI are driving intrapreneurship & transformation – All industries should find ways to incorporate AI and valuable data to drive profits and transform their businesses.
Digital transformation – Employees must switch to a digital mindset and pick up new skills in order to cope with the rapidly changing digital world and consumer ecosystem.7. Ajay Prasad, Founder and President of GMR Web Team – @ajayprasad_
I believe the biggest marketing prediction for 2018 will be voice-optimized content. In the next two years, 50% of online searches will be done by voice. This is due to improved local listings and consumers adopting mobile devices, including smartwatches and smart speakers.
Voice searches usually contain long-tail keywords and more conversational tone. Small businesses will need to have web content and search ads that are voice-optimized, as most voice searches will be for these types of businesses. Adding an FAQ page is a great way to include these longer keywords on your site.
8. David Klein, Director of Marketing at ClickTime
Ads and promoted messages will follow customers across their devices and into their homes. And voice-controlled smart speakers and AR-enabled glasses — even simple Google searches — will offer marketers more ways than ever to get in front of their customers. Marketers will share their brand story, as well as customized messaging based on traditional data (location, demographics, past purchases) and newer data points, such as mood and proximity to others, that will drive a larger conversation about privacy and data collection.
9. Holly Mason, President and Owner of MasonBaronet
Businesses will need to start thinking about how to engage with Gen Z consumers who are coming of age and represent $44 billion in buying power. This means B2B marketers should embrace Instagram, in addition to the more prevailing social channels: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. To help posts pop off a feed and break through the clutter of your followers’ social pages, consider developing unique, animated content. Marketers must be more personalized to increase engagement, relevancy and brand loyalty. It’s all about building a relationship with your constituents.
10. Aviad Abiri, VP of Portfolio Sales Enablement at NICE – @NICELtd
The Year of Even More ‘Extreme Analytics’: In 2017, extreme analytics played a large role in customer experience. In 2018, we will see this movement take off – particularly in the predictions space – prompting enterprises to respond by operationalizing data and analytics in real-time while restructuring around evolved expectations.
Step Into the Future with Omnichannel: In 2018, we will see omnichannel take hold as organizational structures are deconstructed and rebuilt in a way that allows them to catch up to where technology already is, integrating digital capabilities like interaction management, video chat, recording, email and social media into different business environments.
11. Bill Magnuson, CEO and Co-founder of Braze
Successful marketers will combine technology, data and creative in 2018. Marketers will offer a lot of value by delivering a cross-channel experience that feels interactive, valuable and cohesive to the end user. In 2018, we’ll also see artificial intelligence used to deliver better transparency to advertisers on performance and placement by cutting down on fraud. For marketing, we’ll also see AI utilized to better understand the context around a customer and increase the chances that a message is delivering an experience that is valuable to them at that moment.
12. Chaitanya Chandrasekar, CEO and Co-founder of QuanticMind
Business in 2018 will be even more data-focused. Corporate data generation will increase 4300% by 2020 but mismanaged data will cost businesses $3.3T by 2020. Smart businesses will tackle this challenge with solutions that unify and decode data into actionable insights.
Especially so for digital marketing, since Chrome, the world’s most popular browser, will have a built-in ad blocker to filter out irrelevant marketing messages, while Google recently doubled daily budget caps for performance-based channels such as search. Digital marketers will need insights based on cold, hard data – not gut feelings – to properly target prospective customers without breaking the bank.
13. Jerusha Harvey, VP of Education and Professional Development at DMA
Marketers are struggling to find resources to help them put all the pieces together in this fast-changing landscape of IoT, big data, attribution woes, and integrating online and offline touchpoints – as well as how best to communicate across each channel. To help marketers succeed, in 2018, we expect to see a surge in continuous talent-development programs from those “in the know”: the practitioner on the front line of addressing these challenges every day. There will be a shifting in the marketing education landscape from relying on traditional education avenues to looking to leaders in the field to help fill the gap.
14. Laura Carrier, Vice President of Vertical Strategy and Measurement at MediaMath
Multi-touch attribution. Organizations will focus on placing a more accurate value on their marketing spend, which will lead to more robust implementations of MTA.- Continued growth of predictive analytics. Businesses will finally start to be able to use predictive analytics to influence customer behaviors, rather than sticking to traditional look-back analyses.
- Integration of data and analytics as enterprise layers within an organization versus silo’d groups. This will be accompanied by a dearth of skilled data scientists and an increase in citizen analysts’ capabilities, meaning that someone who isn’t an analyst will pick up some level of analytical skills to do their job.
Multi-touch attribution. Organizations will focus on placing a more accurate value on their marketing spend, which will lead to more robust implementations of MTA.15. Luisana Cartay, CMO at Photoslurp
In 2018, we will see a massive shift from staged to authentic content in (online) marketing. With the declining effectiveness of social & digital ads brands are looking for ways to attract and engage their audience again. Split A/B tests on Facebook in which regular ads are tested against authentic customer content shows that authentic visual content does perform better.
16. Anne Frisbie, SVP and GM of Global Brand & Programmatic at InMobi
Heading into 2018, we will see some significant changes for video ads to be optimized for a mobile format; there will be less buffer time and more personalized content based on each user- Personalized end-cards will be the future of video ads, offering an action within the ad
- We will also see an increase in vertical video ads leveraging programmatic – nearly three-quarters of all video ad dollars will be programmatic
- Audience identification is getting very good, but brands still struggle when it comes to matching the creative – in 2018, we’ll see creative catch up
Heading into 2018, we will see some significant changes for video ads to be optimized for a mobile format; there will be less buffer time and more personalized content based on each user17. Jordan Harling, Chief Digital Strategist at Roman Blinds Direct
With the rise of smart home technologies like Google Home, Amazon Echo, and Apple HomeKit, 2018 is going to be when voice search really becomes mainstream. What this means is that people are going to use more natural language when using search engines. Search engines are adapting and beginning to favour natural, speech-like content, so to keep up we have to provide content in the same way. We have to think like our customers and answer the questions they’re asking in a concise and informative way. Voice search will define 2018.
18. Franco Aquino, Co-founder of REN Marketing LLC – @aquino_franco
The introduction of new video software will reduce video production costs and will lead to more marketers adding video to their content strategies. Companies that use artificial intelligence like Lumen5 will pave the way for this shift. Additionally, as social media platforms take advantage of Apple’s ARKit, it’s possible that more augmented reality advertising features will be available for businesses.
19. Amber Kemmis, VP of Client Services for SmartBug Media
- “Free content” will be more readily available across the web.
- Lead gen will still be important for digital marketers, but they will have to get wiser about capturing leads due to the importance of ungated long-form content and topic clusters for SEO.
- In addition to SEO, marketers will give away more free content simply because consumers demand it, especially on channels like social media where we are so accustomed to instant gratification and any extra clicks or form fills will mean less people see a company’s valuable content.
20. Chris Brantner, Founder of SleepZoo.com
The new year will bring a shift towards brands getting more personal with their marketing. Consumers are growing more skeptical of superficial, slick marketing and will look towards more personal feeling advertisements. This will lead brands to embrace more live video formats via Facebook, Instagram, etc. as a way to communicate in a more real way, allowing customers to engage with real figures by asking questions and commenting. No more stock photos in videos – instead real people holding real conversations, allowing brands to feel more genuine. It’s something we definitely aim to implement in 2018.
21. Diane Conklin, President and Founder of Complete Marketing Systems
2018 is going to bring a lot of business and marketing opportunities for those who are quick, flexible and aware. Not only will current event dictate this to some degree, but there will be a lot of money made in a variety of areas. For example, look at just one example of what’s happening in the world today with controversies like sexual misconduct allegations and firings. Many companies are going to be looking for help in these areas and companies that can adjust and provide services and other things will be in high demand.
22. Bob Osmond, GM of NY Access Brand Communications – @bobosmosis
2018 will be the year of brand ethics. EVERY brand will be held to new levels of accountability and transparency as a result of continued fallout from a year of taking people to task for their transgressions. Consumer standards have been so elevated-and access to information is so democratized-that brands will be called out for any say/do disconnects related to social issues. This means that all (glass) houses will have to be in order if brands plan to weigh in on social issues, as is increasingly expected of them by consumers.
23. Julia Marvin, PR and Content Marketing Specialist at Digabit – @DigabitInc
In 2018, marketers need to take a full-funnel approach to marketing. Marketing efforts should be planned and executed that impact not only the top of funnel (brand awareness) but also the middle (consideration), bottom (decision). With so much information available online, the buyer journey has changed, and it’s more important than ever to reach customers in the right format, at the right time, with the right marketing. Marketing teams should work closely with sales to develop messaging, ads, emails, educational pieces and marketing collateral that addresses each stage of the funnel and helps guide prospective customers to make a final purchase from your business.
24. Wes Marsh, Director of Digital Marketing for Solodev – @WesMarshDigital
Don’t expect TV marketing to make a comeback in 2018; expect it to continually shrink. As more people cut the cord and opt for services like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube Red and YouTube TV, savvy advertisers should look to move a portion of their traditional media budgets into new streaming options. Advertisers on traditional cable stations will continue to lose viewers and thus see very little return on their investments. You might even need to invest in the services of media buying agencies more than ever to ensure you can still reach your target audience.
25. Deborah Sweeney, CEO of MyCorporation.com – @deborahsweeney
Artificial intelligence in live chat will help businesses to communicate better with customers and provide them with instant answers 24×7. This will enable customers to get the answers they need in a more efficient fashion and for businesses to swiftly provide answers without the need of human interaction. This might lower the costs for businesses – especially for questions that are frequent and it will provide an enhanced customer service experience for website visitors.
26. Geoff Hoesch, CEO of Dragonfly Digital Marketing – @DragonflyDM
The digital marketing space will continue to move toward easily consumable content such as videos, images, gifs, and infographics. While textual content will remain important for SEO, as search engines are not yet fully capable of understanding visual content (and therefore unable to rank a site based on it), marketers with an understanding of Google’s RankBrain AI algorithm will focus more on dwell time, or time spent on a page, and utilize visual content in tandem with textual content order to bring dwell time up.
27. Ben Nesvig, Social Media Strategist for The Social Lights – @TheSocialLights
Brands Invest In Stories
Since the debut of Instagram Stories, brands have been dabbling with the feature. Now, with the popularity of Instagram Stories—and the ability for Facebook Pages to also publish stories—you can expect brands to invest more in ephemeral content creation.
Serialized Video Becomes Popular
YouTubers have built massive audiences through consistent and recurring content on the platform. Now look for brands to invest in serialized social video content, whether through live video, ephemeral content, or simple videos.
28. Bryan MacDonald, EVP of Product and Strategy for Remarketable
As marketers move toward identity resolution as a key way to power cutting-edge personalization, data hygiene becomes more important than ever. Can your company correctly identify who a user is across devices? Are the identities being matched accurately? Is the name of the individual being identified accurately? How trustworthy are the email addresses? How accurate are the postal addresses?
Without solid data hygiene, marketing dollars are wasted by reaching out to the wrong person via wrong postal address, or wrong email.
Taking a proactive approach to data hygiene when it comes to identity resolution ensures you’re targeting the right people.
29. Leah Pope, Chief Marketing Officer for Datorama
2018 will be the year of marketing intelligence: 2018 will be the year that marketing intelligence enables marketers to take control of their data. By deploying solutions that leverage AI, flexible data modeling capabilities and automated insights, marketers will be able to connect and unify, analyze, and act on all of their respective marketing data immediately.
30. Nancy Lim Rothman, Director of Marketing at CallRail – @CallRail
This year, we have seen a tremendous increase in the use of digital automation in marketing, a trend that will continue into 2018. From digital advertisers using automation, to Amazon offering better deals to consumers who order products via Alexa, the hype of digital automation is at an all-time high. But while automation is helpful for improving process efficiency, it’s extremely important that we maintain a human element in our higher level of strategy. Creativity can’t be automated, and creativity is an essential component to any marketer’s toolkit.
What are your predictions for the future of marketing in 2018? Sound off in the comments section below!
Responses have been edited for clarity and length