Marketing Trends: Away from advertising and towards individual interests
Digitization is currently shaking up many industries and market segments. Marketing trends clearly show this: Expectations of marketing and sales are rising. Why? "Advertising" has long been something of a dirty word and stands for the era of mass marketing in the 70s, 80s or 90s.
"It has long been possible to conduct automated 1-to-1 dialogues with prospects and customers. And the customer demands it. Nobody wants advertising, everyone wants information about their interests."
What does this mean for marketing professionals? If you think modern marketing still works like it did 10-15 years ago, you need to find a new job!
Persona quo vadis? - Where are the marketing trends going to?
» All the new technologies are fundamentally changing the game. Just a few years ago, the declared goal of many marketers was individual dialog, just like in the old days in the corner store. But no Aunt Emma had such a big brain and could make mass deductions and predictions from customer behavior.
Anyone who collects, stores, aggregates, evaluates and interprets huge amounts of data knows more about the customer than he does himself. Or as statisticians always claim: "Gimme 3 clicks and I know you!"
Whether newsletter, website or e-mailer: The dialog is not just becoming more personalized. It is becoming personal. 1:1 is now reality! How many years have we been talking about 1:1 or behavioral marketing! Hand on heart. Absolutely no one did it. Because it was too time-consuming, too expensive and not really good! This excuse is no longer valid. Rather, 1:1 has become a clear expectation of the customers.
Segmentation according to target groups has long since failed to awaken the needs of customers. Personas have taken their place. But they, too, are stereotypes, of course. In the end, they are just target groups described in a much more filigree and detailed way. And, of course, significantly more target groups. But the idea behind them is the same as the classic target group definition: You try to sort customers according to similarities. To use messages and communication channels in a standardized way. But this is becoming increasingly difficult. Scientists, for example, have long been talking about the fact that the so-called USP (unique selling proposition) always refers only to groups and has long since had to be replaced by the ISP (individual selling proposition).
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Such concepts are being replaced by completely new approaches, fueled by developments in artificial intelligence. After all, anyone who is intensively involved with personas quickly realizes that the number of these personas grows the more you take a closer look at their data. This can hardly be managed in any meaningful way. |
Outdated marketing trends: campaigns are so 90s
Campaigns? In campaigns, people used to think. Over and out!
Today, this is done by communication processes. Processes to get the permission ("permission") to inform prospects across platforms and digitally! Those who have the permission try to develop the contact with the customer in a meaningful way and always observe what interests the contact has and where he is probably in the buying process.
Intelligent impulses help to keep the permission and develop the customer.
 Campaigns are basically something rigid and address larger numbers of addressees.
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 In contrast, communication impulses nudge the recipient. They give ideas, stimulate thought, or support problem-solving. For this purpose, the buyer persona approach is dramatically developed further.
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Why? Hypotheses about the potential customer are no longer necessary, because there are enough facts. The potential customer or account provides masses of data about their interests. So in the future, every user will get their content. At every digital touchpoint.
Newsletters will increasingly draw from a gigantic pool of content. And they will respond to customers ever more precisely, accurately, and individually. And if you look closely, you will quickly see that your customers no longer fit into personas concepts. Personas are only the very first step that will lead to the introduction of dialogs based on artificial intelligence.
To make this work, existing technologies such as marketing automation, content management, CRM web tracking solutions, social media management, IP resolution software, etc. are increasingly integrated. The goal: the digital customer journey.
Contemporary Marketing Trends:
Marketing 2022 websites conduct personal conversations
Dynamic websites can already show individual content to each user. B2B companies, for example, link IP resolution tools to their content management.
✔ If the content management systems know which industry, company size or region the visitor comes from, the initial contact starts far more efficiently.
✔ Customers no longer search. They are taken digitally by the hand.
✔ These approaches will significantly change the role of the website.
MarTech companies conquer the market
The move to more online touchpoints with the customer makes it imperative to deploy new technologies that both navigate the Web and extract information about user behavior, and create personalized content for individual Web visitors.
This will lead to the next boom in marketing technology companies, which will then lead to consolidation by 2025. The numbers speak plainly: In 2011, there were 150 so-called MarTec companies; today, there are almost 4,000. Not all of them will catch on. But they will definitely change the way marketing departments spend money. CMOs in the United States already have larger budgets for information technology than the chief technology manager. Europe will follow suit. In many companies, the figure of the Chief Marketing Technologist will emerge, bridging the gap between CMO and CIO.
Marketing responds in real time
Customers or consumers speak their minds - loud and clear: whether it's reviews on TripAdvisor or Facebook posts.
➔ As a result, marketers will increasingly have to engage in dialog and respond at lightning speed. A blog article, a message on Twitter, a Facebook post, a post in a forum on XING or LinkedIn, a YouTube video:
Marketing messages are becoming more contextual , responding ad hoc to real customer requests and needs.
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They give the customer the opportunity to interact. Marketers always and at all times know what their customers' opinions are, what they like, what they don't, and can adapt their communications accordingly. In real time. They become "customer experience leaders".
 On the one hand, this will lead to more storytelling: Companies will increasingly try to use "soft" communication, to distinguish themselves as opinion leaders and credible experts. And on the other hand, they will try to win the goodwill of so-called influencers.
 Just as PR professionals used to scramble for "multipliers" or testimonials, more and more marketers will use similar tools. Influencers or multipliers ultimately have greater credibility than advertising.
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Especially in a world where customers have to deal with sensory overload, a pre-filtered opinion will be more effective than shouty advertising. |
Marketing 2022 makes sales
Studies have shown: Customers have less and less contact with sales during the decision-making process. This is increasingly true for B2B as well: more than three-quarters of all B2B buyers, even in small companies, have contact with a sales person only shortly before the deal is closed.
Before that, they already had a long "customer journey" behind them.
On this journey, they have been accompanied by the communication process. The prepares the potential customer for such a long time, provides them with information and materials (white papers, videos, etc.), turns them into an "opportunity," and practically hands them over to sales just before closing.
Today, marketing is increasingly becoming a key resource for a company's sales success.
Marketing spending will also increase: A study by IDC has shown: Today, a B2B company spends an average of 4.5% of its revenue on marketing. In the near future, modern companies are more likely to spend 10% and more. At the same time, the cost per lead will drop dramatically - thanks to digital channels. Today, it is already 65% less than just a few years ago.
If we look at marketing trends in 2022, the inevitable consequence is that more and more marketing experts will be paid according to performance-based models, just as salespeople were in the past.
Modern Marketing : Nothing works anymore without Closed Loop
Creativity is still part of the business in marketing today. However, marketing trends in 2022 are clearly moving in one direction: the figure of the marketer is shifting more and more from creative campaign supplier to analyst of large amounts of data. This is not just about data used for lead generation, but also data fed back from the marketer's own sales team or sales partners:
✔ Why did the customer buy?
✔ How long did it take the customer to sign a contract?
✔ How many decision makers have there been?
✔ Why did we lose the customer to the competition?
Modernes Marketing schafft nicht nur Nachfrage. Marketing 2022 begleitet und entwickelt den kompletten Unternehmensprozess vom Erstkontakt über die Leadgenerierung, Leadmanagement, Kundenentwicklung, Service Management, Cross- und Upselling und zurück.
➔ Modern marketing does not just create demand. Marketing 2022 accompanies and develops the complete business process from initial contact to lead generation, lead management, customer development, service management, cross- and upselling and back.In marketing today, new software tools monitor customers and contacts at all times. In the process, they independently develop activities for winning back customers or for cross-selling and upselling. Marketing Trends 2022 therefore show that for marketers, the customer journey will be a completely closed loop in the future.
Do you already have a customer success management department?
Marketing Trends: Digitization and big data generation will drive companies to create new departments. Prof. Michael E. Porter (Harvard Business School) and James E. Heppelmann, President and CEO of PTC predict the emergence of new departments:
Among other things, a customer success management department responsible for the customer experience and ensuring that the customer gets maximum value from the product. This team has primary responsibility for the relationship with the customer after the sale. It is in close contact with all colleagues from Sales and Marketing.
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