Marketing Predictions for 2018

Marketing Predictions for 2018

If you’re reading this, you must have caught my final Guru installment for BusinessJournalDaily.com talking about marketing predictions for 2018.  If you didn’t, don’t worry…I posted it below so you can catch up.  I’ll give you a minute…

Now that we’re all caught up, let’s look at a few more marketing predictions for 2018 we think will help you ring in the New Year.

Shift to Retention-based Marketing

The most important customer is the one you have, and while most companies react to situations when clients decide to pursue other interests, what if companies spent more times keeping the clients they do have?  As we look at marketing predictions for 2018, there will be a shift to retention based marketing efforts designed to keep the clients they currently have as a partners.  A big part to this will be utilization of business intelligence tools as well as investing in an infrastructure and culture that gets back to making your current customers happy, rather than looking for the next buck.

At 898 Marketing, we take inventory of our clients and have a strategy in place to communicate, adjust and plan short and long term plans that keep their businesses thriving and our services relevant.  By performing client segmentation techniques, we are able to develop retention strategies that are unique as the marketing campaigns we develop for them.  It is large reason why our retention and retainer rates with our partner are so high.  Let’s face it, without them, we wouldn’t have a job, would we?

 Accountability with Conversions

Let’s be honest, as marketers, we not only are designed to help sell the brand of other companies, but of our own as well.  We have been preaching that digital and social solutions can help identify what channel provided a conversion, a sale or, in layperson terms, what a company “got.”  As it relates to marketing predictions for 2018, companies are going to start asking for accountability in finding where conversions are coming from in their marketing campaigns.

Brands will start to place a higher emphasis on optimizing for conversion rates instead of impressions.  For your website, that means looking at time spent on a page/site, page paths, referral sources and bounce rates, even for emails.  This will help lower the cost per acquisition by eliminating the channels that aren’t performing while appealing and acquiring a higher quality and more engaged customer.  The only way to do this is to analyze your website using heatmap or site tracking tools as well as developing flows for how your customers engage, interact and, ultimately, decide to choose you.

Everyone is  Technology Company

In today’s world, we all are technology companies.  From social media to smartphone applications, the brand of companies is no longer limited to who or what you stand for.  Instead, it now requires a company to prove to customers how they know how technology can be used in their world to help them interact with their brand and, most importantly, simplifying their lives.  Leveraging smartphone applications, looking into how smartphones and smartwatches can deliver an experience cross channel and finding new ways to leverage streaming services, social media and smart home devices, like Alexa, is the next step to showing customers that you are more than just a company they know.  You are company that knows how to appease them.

Those Ads You Hate…They Aren’t Going Anywhere

You know how you see those ads everyone on your phone or when you browse the internet?  Yeah, they aren’t going away anytime soon.  As artificial intelligence combines with business intelligence, display advertising and behavioral retargeting ads will become more common place in companies’ marketing efforts.

In the later part of 2017, we have even seen the growth happen with our own clients.  With click thru rates averaging around .20% and conversion rates well above 15%, it is becoming a cost efficient approach that combines branding and accountable conversions as part of an overall marketing strategy.  One thing you need to keep in mind is that, like any marketing effort, this CANNOT be your only effort in your strategy.

As you prepare your company to grow and prosper in 2018, there is no crystal ball to tell you what will happen.  However, these marketing predictions for 2018 will help guide you in planning for a year that will be the best it can be for you, your company and, most importantly, your customers.  Happy New Year!

About the Author

Jeff-Ryznar-898MarketingJeff Ryznar is a marketing professional with over 15 years of strategic marketing experience and planning for some of the largest brands including Ford Motor Company, General Motors and the Cleveland Cavaliers.  He is currently the owner of 898 Marketing, specializing in custom marketing strategies and business solutions for small and medium sized business in the Midwest.

Tags:

Recent Comments