By Ed Pierce, President of ITA Communications. Fleet.
Business leaders are hearing much more about “disruption” than ever. Certainly, marketers must not only adapt to the concept to remain viable. But they must also promote the concept to their employers and customers.
Here are 10 trends marketers should be talking about, excerpted from the book, “Disruptive Marketing: What Growth Hackers, Data Punks and Other Hybrid Thinkers Can Teach Us About Navigating the New Normal” by Geoffrey Colon:
- Mobile is now the dominant platform. Intelligent devices—smartphones, tablets, watches, wearable gadgets, glasses, microchips, HoloLens, and others— have already reshaped and remixed the marketing world. As we shift to a world of intelligent devices, marketing will strike up an even more personalized relationship with customers.
- Transparency will be part of all successful business customer relationships. Customers want more engagement from companies. Companies locked into a conventional broadcast model are failing. By 2020, customers will have an even greater expectation of transparency. Authentic companies will be rewarded, as will companies that make social responsibility a main part of their culture.
- Content is currency. Because content isn’t static, new forms such as virtual reality, video games, 3D, and 4D are being issued on platforms that include Oculus Rift and Xbox. This is one area where disruption can set a new standard for engaging content.
- User-generated content will be the most disruptive. The power of user-generated content will surpass that of branded content. In response to this model of user-generated content production, content co-creation between brands and customers will become a popular trend.
- Social networks are becoming an ecosystem to rival the original Internet. Social networks have the full potential to become not just one of the channels but the channel—possibly another Internet in and of itself. We’re already seeing what we call social, interest, and economic “graphs”—places where people are connected based on a unique commonality.
- Brands will act as their own multimedia, bypassing press and publishers. By cultivating a brand community and culture with their customers, brands will begin to collaborate with their audiences (as opposed to simply trying to sell to them), creating loyalists and brand advocates. Customer responses and feelings toward the brand will dictate future product development or enhancement.
- Most disruptive content will focus on innovation and the future state. What exists today may be good, but what will exist in the future can and should be vastly improved. Innovative products and solutions will create more value for customers.
- Brands that focus on Generation Z will have the advantage. The post-Millennial generation will be even more demanding than its predecessors, and brands will need to acknowledge that. For legacy companies, simply updating older marketing that targeted Millennials won’t be enough. By 2023 there will be a shift.
- Personalized, data-driven disruptive marketing will become the norm. Data-driven disruptive marketing is relationship oriented, and those companies that focus on building relationships around good products will be rewarded.
- Tracking metrics, analytics, and artificial intelligence are dramatically altering the effectiveness of marketing. While most businesses still measure marketing success by looking at “vanity” metrics such as impressions, likes, shares, or engagement rates, leading-edge companies are adopting better analytical tools and machine learning to measure emotional and cultural relevance, predict future outcomes and realize a better ROI.
I welcome feedback, questions, suggestions, experiences and differing points of view. Just give me a call at 610–585 0801 or email me at [email protected].
