The year of 2016 has been fruitful and eventful in the marketing community. Considering how fast technology advances, the number of newly created marketing strategies is very likely to grow even more rapidly this year.
Marketers in 2017 will enjoy the fresh opportunities to connect with customers and boost their brands' recognition in ways that fit the pace of changes. This is the exact reason why we decided to share the top marketing trends of the year.
Before we introduce you to the trends you should definitely pay attention to, the first thing we need to do is explain the change in marketing trends we have witnessed this past year.
According to Forbes, the biggest trend of the last year was mobile marketing. As marketers, you have surely noticed the instant change that replaced desktop device use with mobile devices.
Now, since the enormous growth of changes in terms of marketing strategies that occurred in only one year, should we expect the technology to change marketing with the same pace, slow it down or become even stronger?
You may have guessed, it is the last one. Marketing trends of 2017 are expected to be much more influential and powerful than those of previous years.
For 2017, here is what you should definitely pay attention to:
1. Interactive Content
Interactive content was first introduced last year, but is expected to take an even bigger swing in 2017. For those who are not yet familiarized with it, interactive content is a one people can interact with. Every testing of this strategy so far has lead to t he conclusion that having the opportunity to actively participate in content is much better than simply reading it and consuming it passively.
Interactive content comes in numerous forms and the number of opportunities actually grows daily. At this point, you can insert this in your marketing strategy in the form of polls, assessments, infographics, contests and brackets.
2. Executive Branding
The entire past decade introduces a dramatic shift to the individual. More specifically, the Internet and social media have turned the traditional commanding-type of marketing into executive branding where the focus is placed on the individuals of companies or customers as individuals.
At this point, the traditional branding we know of is not sufficient for a good marketing strategy. Executive branding now becomes a necessity in every business environment, which means that the long-used digital marketing strategies can barely prove to be effective on their own.
According to Wickes , an expert on executive branding, ''Buyers want to know the 'why' and trust the leaders behind the companies they do business with. Some companies have adapted to this evolution, but many have not. Some feel there is no need, but 2017 will mark a watershed year for executive branding."
3. Influencer Marketing
This third trend is not new, but will definitely reach a higher level of importance in 2017. This marketing strategy is racing to the top of the marketing trends of the year, mostly due to the need of customers to hear recommendations from people they see as leaders.
Influencer marketing is currently most intertwined with the social media platforms. An influencial marketing expert, Mark Evans , has stated:
Influencers are key to making sense of the billions of pieces of content and words that are published throughout social media services.They are the ones we follow, trust, and decide what will succeed or fail.
As the influencer marketing is rapidly getting implemented in businesses' strategies, so grows the requirement on behalf of people for someone that will speak highly about products or services. Once the right influencers recommend something through an advertisement or social media, people are more likely to recognize the value and purchase the product or service.
See Also: How Client Testimonials Encourage New Client Engagement
4. Short-Lived Content
Short-lived content carries the meaning of exactly the sound of this phrase. We are speaking of a quickly produced and posted content that stays around for only a short amount of time. Why do people enjoy it? The answer is simple - it is fun, not permanent and easy.
The first to introduce this trend was Snapchat, in 2011. Even though in the beginning the short-lived content was used for fun only, it further turned to the option to create a story that remains live for 24 hours.
Disappearing content has turned the entire world into even bigger multimedia addicts, with people sending out vanishing photos on various occasions during their days. The fact that the content introduced by Snapchat disappeared was found to be so extremely interesting that people simply enjoyed the short attention span.
It is exactly the Generation Z or the millenials who were practically born with a mobile phone who found this option to be perfect for their so known eight-second attention span.
5. Livestreaming
Livestreaming has been introduced just recently, which means that we are still exploring the idea and checking out its benefits as a marketing trend. However, taking the impact it has had in the several months it has been presented to customers, this is considered one of the biggest trends of 2017.
Since Instagram integrated the livestream option into the new Stories feature, a big step was made in the direction of this becoming a huge marketing trend. Once this trend was introduced on the platform, many said that this was a reason for a big fall of Snapchat, which first introduced the short-lived content.
However, considering that both the live-streaming and short-term option are still used by millions of people worldwide and on a much common basis than any other type of posting, the both are expected to remain on the list of trends of 2017.
6. Personalization
Sure, interesting innovation such as short-lived content and the chance to livestream from your smartphone at every time seem very inviting, but we should not forget that marketing requires more than this. The sixth in our list of marketing trends remains one that has been on the lists of previous years - personalization.
For those not familiarized with personalization, we are speaking of segmenting the content to reach a particular audience based on their habits and preferences. It is something usually implemented through lists that note what people have opted into and uses that to provide them with similar, relevant content.
Additionally, it comes in combination with creating content that interests the particular audience, which can be seen in the increased demand from professional writing services such as Australian Writings.
Personalization has turned out to be a brilliant innovation, especially because the content online is growing at such a rapid speed, that it was almost impossible to do everything in such a little time.
This trend is presumed to maintain its high spot in the marketing world for at least the duration of 2017 since basically, personalization is the best strategy for brands that want to earn the attention of the right audience.
7. Artificial Intelligence
The last but not least - artificial intelligence. Also known as machine learning, this is something we have all encountered or at least heard of this past year. The integration of artificial intelligence in the world of marketing is predicted to continue with its rapid growth in 2017, too.
According to a research by Forrester , artificial intelligence will be the source of powerful insights to many businesses even before this becomes available. This would become possible through the use of interfaces in advances analytics, machine learning technology and complex systems.
It is said that machine learning will be the leader of businesses into making faster and smarter decisions.
Conclusion
From what you have probably concluded so far, 2017 is expected to be at least as productive as the previous year. There are plenty of trends that will remain on the top of the list of marketing strategies, but we also expect to become even more efficient in sharing information and promoting products and services this year.
With this pace, we are surely going to be amazed by many other trends that has not yet surfaced.