Here Are the 4 Trends Every Digital Marketer Should Know We identify the underlying drivers of macro trends that will transform business and society over the next decade.
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If there's anything I've learned as a business leader during the pandemic, it's the concept of adaptive innovation — creating an agile, collaborative and creative model within your business to meet the needs of your customers. To be truly amenable to adaptive innovation, leaders must also understand the underlying drivers of macro trends that will transform business and society over the next decade. In 2021, many of these larger trends were contradictions unto themselves. See:
The triumph of futuristic mRNA AND the failure of legacy supply chains.
Robust GDP growth plus low unemployment AND high economic anxiety due to rising inflation.
The institutionalization of working from home (a driver of "The Great Resignation") AND commercial real estate valuations setting records.
The delay of Google's cookie deprecation (predicted correctly) AND the acceleration of Apple's rise as a gatekeeper and ad seller.
Retail sales, with a bounceback of physical locations, growing at twice the rate of the US economy AND ecommerce expanding its share gains.
These contrasts demonstrate that we are in primacy of the digital economy, which is causing a shift in the relationship between brands and consumers. Below, I'll discuss four top marketing trends to consider to help future-proof your brand this year and beyond.
Related: 9 Public-Relations and Digital-Marketing Trends for 2022
1. Rethinking the customer lifecycle through Web 2.5
In the coming years, we will be sitting at the intersection of two Internet eras: Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 The Web 2.0 era, which we are currently, is one in which consumers participate in an experience through things like user-generated content and business-driven advertisements. It's largely governed by two or three companies that control more thn half of global digital-marketing spend. Web 3.0 is the opposite. Consumers will be able to influence decisions about what products need to be made and sold to them by controlling their own data on a decentralized, blockchain-enabled system — a foundational element of the yet-unrealized metaverse.
Web 2.5, where we are heading next, is at the center of control between consumers and brands. As consumers retain more and more ownership over their data, they will have more optionality to get what they want. Brands, meanwhile, will have more agency to grow independent of the tech giants by creating their own commerce ecosystems underpinned by consumer data, AI and attribution so they can give consumers what they want instead of just marketing their current products.
2. NFTs breed digital ownership and control
NTFs are one-of-a-kind digital assets that consumers can own, not rent, and that might someday also become keys to unlocking different elements of the metaverse. They are most often used in the art and collectible worlds but have future applicability in many other areas. NFTs could help validate tickets at sporting events and concerts, decentralize universities to prove a student's participation and verify patient data in the medical field.
NFT sales volumes soared eightfold to $10.7 billion between Q2 and Q3 of 2021, demonstrating how brands may have a true revenue opportunity. NFTs will reside within the broader context of Web 3.0, enabling participation in a connected community without monetizing personal data. Instead, brands will need to understand consumers' identity-based interests, such as what type of art, music,and other NFT items they are collecting, making it an identity-less transaction.
I foresee that as more connected consumers buy NFTs, they'll create an inventory of digital assets across the web that marketers can use to generate brand engagement, design new experiences, foster a passionate community and grow revenue. NFTs can play a powerful role in engaging with your biggest fans, who are willing to pay beyond a certain price point to have a more authentic relationship with your brand. These customers could become your biggest brand advocates and evolve your entire marketing profile.
3. First- and zero-party data provide the main ingredient for the cookieless future
We've seen brands hit the gas pedal on harnessing and activating their rich first-party customer data thanks to new laws and Walled Garden policies. First-party data, and its sibling zero-party data, is a treasure trove because it builds a direct relationship between brand and consumer. It's a stepping stone for better detecting consumer intent. But it doesn't come for free.
To realize mutual value exchange, brands must create individualized, well-timed experiences that encourage consumers to share more of their data. Brands can plot a whole course along the entire customer journey to insert opportunities for more zero- and first-party data collection, such as games, quizzes, surveys, QR codes, newsletters, apps, email preference centers and social media. The key is to incorporate these activities slowly and intentionally to encourage consumers to share additional pieces of information to further flesh out their customer profile.
Then, brands need to modernize their tech stack to best manage, enrich, store and activate this data to execute more targeted marketing across channels. Data can be enriched with other permissioned, first-party data gleaned from additional owned channels, digital content and partners. Systems such as customer data platforms (CDPs) help brands acquire and retain customers by collecting data, unifying customer profiles, segmenting audiences, predicting behavior, activating that data through integrated technology and measuring attribution.
4. Low- or no-code tech helps marketers operate at digital speed
Clunky technology that's difficult to implement and use is no way to keep pace with dynamic shifts in consumer behavior. Enter the rise in adoption of intuitive, low- or no-code tools that save time and effort while increasing how quickly data can be surfaced and applied to marketing campaigns. The automation behind these leading-edge tools makes configuring, importing\ and exporting data between systems far easier while also supporting the innovation and integration capabilities required to stay competitive. They're specifically designed to be used by non-technical teams like marketing to deploy customer experiences at both speed and scale.
Related: Marketers Must Pay Attention to These 3 Things to Overcome the Great Resignation's Talent Exodus
I'm excited about how modern marketers can take advantage of this new constantly connected, digital-first, data-driven world. The years ahead will present more opportunities than ever for businesses to use technology and data to seamlessly engage with consumers through any means, anywhere. Are you ready.
