1) Customer-centricity is king

In a digital age where information is far from hard to come by, customers value unique targeted content they can engage with. As more platforms become available to voice opinions on experiences, we are seeing an even greater attention to the customer journey, with experiential marketing coming into play.

This is enabling marketers to focus even more closely on customer-centricity, providing personalised journeys through targeted content during the sales cycle from end to end.
There is now a wealth of channels that can be utilised to drive customer-centric approaches in order to resonate with a brands target audience. It is important to embrace the power of visuals, therefore; targeting audiences with graphic content that audiences find engaging. The more visual the content, the better.

2) Actionable analytics and the role of IoT

This year we’re seeing more organisations look at how analytics can give the actionable insights needed to develop effective marketing campaigns. Beyond understanding the customer, data can provide greater insight into how profit, revenue and customer retention are being driven through marketing, giving business leaders greater understanding of what marketing is contributing to the business.

IoT also presents ever greater opportunities in analytics. As something that is being rapidly embraced by sectors across many industries, IoT presents marketers with access to data points and a quantity of data that they’ve never had the opportunity to connect to before. Taking a spectrum of information from ‘connected spaces’ marketers will be given the opportunity to see more effectively how their marketing campaigns are truly performing.

However, the large amounts of quantitative data gathered will only be useful if businesses can sort through the noise of the information and interpret the hidden messages. Once this is mastered, IoT will play an increasingly important over the rest of 2017 and beyond…

3) Connecting the dots with integration

With many elements to the marketing mix, particularly in the digital landscape, how marketers take truly integrated programmes to market is essential. There is still a lot of siloed activity throughout the industry and increasingly we’re seeing the limitations of this.

Integration and collaboration are essential, as are the digital tools used and how different teams across the marketing function use them. There is a lot of work to do in this space, and marketing teams must work out how to collaborate effectively to contribute to and connect the different elements of a campaign to ensure maximum market impact.

4) The new breed of marketer

This year, a new breed of marketer is emerging; one that is more data driven and analytical; one that is comfortable with digital tools, can make sense of data streams and interpret the story.

This role will become increasingly valuable, providing organisations with actionable insight to make campaigns more effective, engaging and stronger. The companies that maximise this opportunity and leverage it throughout their business are the ones that will win in the digital transformation battle.

With markets changing rapidly, it is more important than ever for marketing to be agile – and digital tools will assist with this. The more agile and dynamic the marketing function, the better they will be able to respond and adapt, and the more effective their marketing will be.

When it comes to digital transformation – and indeed the disruption it is bringing to businesses today – marketing is playing an increasingly key role. As a function, it should support the wider adoption of digital programmes, with marketers taking the lead to communicate the benefits of digital to the business, making the progress of the organisation visible and promoting the digital initiatives adopted by the organisation.