– For starters: Content marketing (still) outshines traditional advertisements

– More creative content, more visual content. GIFS, Emojis, Instagram Stories & Live, Facebook Live,… the list continues.

– Video reigns. It brings the highest ROI compared to any other content format online.

– Retention is key. “Instead of just bringing you to this blog post, we should optimize it so that you engage, subscribe, and keep coming back.”

– More mobile, less desktop – what else is new.

– Again, Content marketing is becoming more and more successful, and the numbers are proving it.

– “Facebook is the 800-pound gorilla of content consumption, content sharing, and content discovery.” But there’s an ever-declining organic reach. Meaning; it’ll become increasingly hard to grow an audience on the platform without spending money. Good content remains key.

– Video & visual; video & visual; video & visual.

– User-generated content (UGC) is on the rise. “Here’s a stat to glue to your bathroom mirror: 85% of people trust content made by others more than they trust brands’ content. Trust is kinda the secret sauce of content marketing. In a sense, it’s why we do content marketing at all – to build trust.” It’s like micro-influencer marketing, and it works.– As content marketing is on the rise, competition in content is too. Personalisation is key.

– They again talk about how mobile is the future, and how mobile video grew six times faster than desktop video.

– Then there’s of course Influencer marketing. Why is it increasingly important? For two reasons, I believe. First and far most: people trust other people talking about a brand, more than they trust the brand telling them it’s great directly. Plus points if that person is a thought leader and has a big following. Secondly; it’s increasingly hard to get published by traditional media as the amount of information is growing while the number of traditional media channels is on decline. Anyway – back to that Forbes list.

– Personalization: “Personalization means segmenting your content to reach different types of audience members based on their preferences, habits, etc.” Put that together with the trend of e-mail marketing & newsletters proving more useful and you know the drill. Different audiences with different interests require different newsletters and emails.

– Live-streaming is becoming bigger. Instagram just launched live-video in Europe; have fun watching your friends streaming their dinners with family & drunk nights out

.– Short-lived content. This obviously can be related to live-streaming, as ‘live’ on most platforms now means ‘gone after live”. I also believe it can be related to a trend of people looking for more honest and less pre-made, semi-staged content. Although of course – short-lived & live content can be staged too.

– Interactive content is becoming more popular. e.g. “polls, surveys, infographics, brackets and contests” – everything that activates your audience rather than keeping them passive.

– Chatbots are becoming better and they’re being used more and more, to improve anything from onboarding processes to help-desk management.

– Looking to bring online into the real world? Augmented Reality has proven to drive real business results. Best example we saw in 2017? Exactly. Pokémon.

– Advertising in the classic sense is dying out. In 2017, “Native advertising means integrating your advertising efforts into content that already provides value to readers and viewers”

– IOT is gonna be big.– Buying on social media via ‘buy’ buttons is maturing. Redirects are no longer a necessity and we might be heading towards a future where online shops exist in a more decentralised manner.

– Data tells you what works and what not. “If you aren’t fluent in Facebook ads and conversion ratios, for example, then you’re missing a crucial part of every marketer’s essential toolbox”.

– ROI and performance-based metrics should be used by every marketing manager, to measure ROI on sign-ups, downloads, purchases, etc.

– More newsletter marketing: ‘truly amazing emails’ – not just throwing with promotions and advertisement. “More brands will launch targeted and relevant e-newsletters, which will become the key method to grow their audiences. Second, more brands will take a hard look at the e-newsletters they have and move them from “email as marketing collateral” to “truly amazing and relevant customer experiences”.

– There’ll be more advertisements on social media, meaning there’ll be less control over audience-building going on there – yes, that’s what Forbes said too.

– Email marketing is number one for promoting B2B (and some random other articles I read argue it’s on the rise for B2C promotions, too).

– LinkedIn is important for B2B. I believe it can be interesting somewhere in the B2C marketing process too, for instance in the process of attracting potential partners.– Influencer marketing has gone through the roof. Rather than partnering up with influencers, big brands are more often buying influencers’s entire business and time, in order to promote their business.

– SEO and SEM have become widespread and deeply integrated practices in almost most marketing departments. If they’re not, they should be. One reason being that as most people get flushed with information on social networks and websites, there may be a trend of them moving away from reading through those networks and websites, and rather moving on to do a direct search again.

– The main purpose of PR & Influencer Marketing is shifting; from it being for people to read & hear about you from others, to Link Building. Every single link from X website to your website, improves your value for Google, and thus; your SEO.

– Sponsoring & partnership marketing, in all kind of ways. Connecting brands in order to strengthen certain parts of the brand image; to create brand awareness & engagement.

– Event marketing: throwing events in order to show the audience in real-life what you’re all about. To let them experience your product, To talk with them face-to-face, and for many more reasons.

Did they or I miss anything else that’s important? Do you want to know more about what I do for betahaus, do you want to partner up for promotion purposes, or do you have a great idea you want to share with me? Get in touch! I’m on alice@betahaus.de. 

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