What Every Content Marketer Needs To Know -The Future Of Digital Tech.
Did you know that global mobile advertising revenue is expected to expand by 3.5 times its current size by the year 2016? Or that mobile commerce will make up nearly 25% of all eCommerce revenue by the end of 2017? One thing's for sure - the way major companies market their brands is transforming as more people access information on their smartphones and tablets.
You've probably already heard about the importance of mobile marketing numerous times before, so I won't bore you with loads of statistics here. However, I did come across a piece of research that I thought you'd be interested in. It's all about how new technology is having an influence on how brands are communicating with their customers, including content marketing, and the lengths these companies are going through in order to attract customers who use these new platforms. Let me explain in a bit more detail...
What does this mean for marketing?
New research - undertaken by The Guardian and software firm Adobe - looked at how marketing has changed with the advent of new mobile technology. Inviting a panel of five top marketing experts and digital chiefs to discuss the issue in front of an audience, the study looked at what the merging of new technology really means for marketers. One of the biggest changes is the way brands create new campaigns using digital platforms. Mark Singleton from Paddy Power told the panel how the company reacted to a recent sports event by booking print ads relating to the story for the next day's newspapers. This is just one example of how marketing campaigns are reacting to the speed in which people get their information in the digital age.
Better targets, greater reach
The research looked at how digital marketing can increase relevancy, as campaigns can now be targeted to a specific group of people more effectively than ever before. The result? Companies can create highly targeted marketing material for demographics that are of high value to them, and will be able to use mobile apps, websites, and social media to expand the reach of a campaign.
Charles Wells, the chief marketing officer from charity service JustGiving, told the panel that marketers need to work with social media experts, web developers and data specialists, and that marketers need to combine creative skills with an understanding of real-time technology in order to produce more effective marketing material. He noted that this was a huge change from how marketing departments worked in the past.
However, there were some who thought that the abundance of new technology could present the marketer with a few challenges. Lisa Bridgett, sales and marketing director for fashion retailer Net-a-Porter thought that marketers needed to rely on their intuition rather than just on technology. She referred to ad buying - an automated process whereby ads are placed online, which is a hard technology to understand.
In short, the rise of digital technology is having a huge effect on marketing, bringing with it both positives and negatives. Marketing departments will need to fully understand technological processes when using these digital platforms to get the best returns on their investment, and will need to work with IT departments and other experts for more effective marketing.
