Crystal-ball gazing: marketing trends for 2010

It’s year’s end, and you know what that means: All manner of experts and observers are making predictions for the year to come. Marketing solutions provider Alterian is no exception. Here is what it’s predicting will be the top 10 marketing trends for 2010:

1) Social media will move toward ubiquity. Alterian cites statistics from IDC estimating that more than half of all workers worldwide use free social-media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook for business today. Add to that the throngs using social media for pleasure, and it’s easy to see why Alterian writes that “rather than being hype, [social media] will simply become normal and part of the everyday mix that works alongside email as a principal form of communication online”. 

2) Companies will have a social-media policy. This is a logical extension of the previous trend: “Formal rules of engagement will become more widespread. Many companies are likely to come up against conflict when they try to extend their social-media efforts across the board.” 

3) Companies will continue to do more with less. For marketing teams in particular, “this will now convert into the need to not only prove the value of your products to consumers but also the value of your marketing strategies as a whole”. 

4) Data analysts will become even more important within marketing departments. This ties in with the “doing more with less” theme, as skilful data analysis can enable companies to hone their contact strategy so that they reap maximum revenue with minimal expense.

5) Marketers will be under even more pressure to show return on investment.  

6) There will be renewed emphasis on gaining access to customer data. “This has become more possible with the introduction of social-media platforms, but gaining access to the right data, the right channels, and the key sentiments about your brand requires effective online monitoring software.” 

7) Companies without effective monitoring, reporting, analytics, and execution software will be at a greater disadvantage than ever.

8) Integration of platforms and processes will be critical. “There is a proliferation of things to monitor, measure, and manage, making it very difficult and time-consuming for marketers to pull together the overall picture for integrated campaigns,” Alterian notes. “There will therefore be a move towards single integrated software platforms so that campaign planning and management are integrated with web and email.” 

9) Strategies and tactics will be recalibrated for engagement. This ties in directly with the increasing ubiquity of social media and a greater emphasis on reputation monitoring.

10) Consumers will gain ever greater power. “Brand value will be influenced more and more by the consumer, making it more important than ever for a brand to have measures of authenticity that will aid in brand differentiation and consumer engagement—you can no longer rely on your brand name as you once did. Organisations are being increasingly judged by their actions and willingness to involve customers, visibly.”

In short, according to Alterian CEO David Eldridge, “Building customer databases is pointless if you don’t manipulate this data to help plan successful marketing campaigns in the future. Engagement is key, but those businesses that ignore the final stage of measurement and analysis will not survive.”  

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