Marketing is centered around monitoring and creating trends in society, so it is no surprise that the industry itself has some interesting trends to watch as you work to develop your own campaigns and succeed in the world of business. Some of these trends have to do with the digital landscape, and others have to do with social consciousness or the ways in which customers are starting to interact with companies. Three which are gaining in the industry are digital complexity, activist mindsets and micro-influencers.
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Digital Complexity
Third-party customer data gathering techniques, such as cookies, are fading away as the go-to for generating data sets and analytical reports. The current trend is first-party data gathering by interacting with customers on platforms built by an ever-growing list of retail giants. Marketing professionals, like Eyal Gutentag, will tell you that it is harder to gather information in these ways. However, the data sets are cleaner and reports more accurate to how customers shop and interact with advertisements. With more workers doing their jobs remotely and greater internet access for the public, online shopping and marketing are the focus point.
Activist Mindsets
Along with an increased digital presence for popular brands, marketers are seeing the rise of activist mindsets among corporations, which reflect the concerns of target audiences. More brands, big and small, are embracing causes and seeing a positive response from the public in areas of human rights, eco-friendly practices, and helping the less fortunate in communities. Marketing for these mindsets can sometimes be tricky because you need to know which causes will interest your ideal customers and which ones will turn them away.
Micro-Influencers
With more people spending time online, for both work and play, micro-influencers are a good way for brands to market products and services to customers for more reach and less budget. Subscribers are less likely to skip a sponsored video than a placed ad and often click on affiliate links to get the products that their favorite online personalities use. You can sponsor YouTube videos, send packages to social media influencers for unboxings and reviews, or even partner with local charities and activist groups to expand your audience with authentic brand ambassadors who have their own following.
Marketing trends that take advantage of changes in the social, political and technological fabric of the world are particularly adept at attracting customers. Some of the current trends to do so include navigating the changing digital complexity by finding new ways to gather data for analytics, engage audiences with an activist mindset and partner with micro-influencers as brand ambassadors.
