Social Media Integration
Have a Facebook account? Check. Twitter? Check LinkedIn and Pinterest?
Check and check. Ok, now what? Activity that happens on social stays there. This
year, integrating social media behavior and data into the rest of the marketing
mix (and database) became crucial in order to reach customers with relevant
messages in real-time.
Be Mobile or Fall Behind
In 2013, marketers finally list mobile as a major line item
on their marketing strategy. Not only though continued investment in
mobile-optimized websites and email, but mobile taking a more important role
when integrating with marketing campaigns. Mobile has become a more strategic
and must-have channel for many businesses.
Social and Content Impact SEO
Over the years, good search engine optimization (SEO) was
all about knowing the tricks of the trade. SEO now is less about having the
right H1 tag or the right keywords on the page and more about creating really
good, original content that is socially consumed and shared. Overall, SEO has drifted
further and further away from on-page SEO, and focuses on the various components
of off-page SEO that came together for a powerful SEO strategy.
Marketers Embrace “Smart” Content
The first time Amazon introduced me to the perfect book for
me via their recommendation engine, I was completely awed. The idea that a
website could not only recognize a return visitor, but also discern their
interests and alter their site experience accordingly, felt like nothing short
of magic. Since then, data-driven personalization, or dynamic content, has
become more common, though not entirely pervasive in the marketing space. During
2013, we started to hear more about adaptive, ‘smart’ content. As context
becomes increasingly important in any inbound marketing strategy, dynamic
content enables marketers to serve highly personalized messages to the right
audience at the right time.
Email Lives On
No, email is not dead. In fact, email will continued to be
an important part of the marketing mix during 2013. Marketing emails became
less “batch and blast” and instead more personalized, relevant and targeted based
on real-time data. There was increased importance in opt-in marketing instead
of opt-out marketing and buying lists became a less-used practice.
Marketing Technology Evolves
In 2013, we saw two major changes in the technology
landscape:
• More investment in technology solutions that solve for
inbound marketing, social media management, and marketing measurement,
attribution and ROI. More importantly, software and services that are
integrated and unified with other channels, departments, and databases is the key.
Marketers spend more on unified, integrated technology solutions that eliminate
data silos.
• As more widgets, gadgets and devices enter the market,
marketers figured out how to use each platform in the best and most appropriate
way. Taking an old advertising model onto new technologies won’t fly.
Content Curating
Content is king, whether you like it or not. Creating more
and more content is among the top priorities for marketing teams throughout
2013. In addition to the increase in allocating budget to content creation, increasingly
more curating services and “content marketplaces” helping marketers deliver
more in a content-heavy world.
Content Crowd-sourcing Expands
Socially-generated content, where your audience help builds
content for you (usually through a contest), has been done for years. There is
an even bigger opportunity for crowd-sourcing platforms that contribute to new
marketing ideas. As the social footprint grows, marketers find more ways to leverage
crowd creativity by building interesting and viral pieces of content with their
network of fans and followers.
Marketing Gets Gamified
The convergence of marketing and gaming has been prominent
throughout 2013. Marketing became more interactive in how it’s deployed and
consumed. “Gamificiation” helps increase the stickiness of content through its
entertainment value, reward, and learning abilities. Through gamification,
marketing can actually be enjoyable instead of avoided.
Context is Content’s New Best Friend
To do marketing better throughout 2013, marketers went beyond
simply creating content to creating a personalized experience for their target
customer that’s seamless across multiple interactions. These experiences leverage
context to make a company’s marketing jive with the searcher’s proclivities –
the things you've learned about your leads over months and years of talking
with them. The things they do, the things they say, the sites they like, the
products they purchase, their happiness level with your company - all to have
deeper and more meaningful relationships and better results.
Work Cited:
By: Laila Entenman
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