5 Marketing Industry Experts Share Their Tips on Future-Proofing You & Your Business For The Next Decade

Let’s face it, technology is changing (perhaps even faster than my ex-wife running away from me) and marketing is one industry that’s highly impacted by it. At the start of the last decade, advertising on Google & Facebook were seen as a joke, they were tasks given to a backroom of junior employees who weren’t taken seriously and Instagram didn’t even exist. However, as we approach the end of 2019, online advertising has become a very significant chunk of every company’s marketing budget. In fact, in 2009, online advertising spend in the US was about $5 billion per quarter, this year, this figure has grown to 29.9 billion per quarter! And this growth shows no signs of stopping!

And guess what? It’s going to continue changing, even quicker than before. Don’t believe me? Close your eyes and breathe. In that time, Google probably updated it’s algorithm again, changing the way your web pages rank. 

So, how do you navigate an industry that’s changing so quickly? It’s simple, stay vigilant and always look out for new trends in the industry. 

Don’t know what to look out for? Don’t worry! We asked 5 industry experts what they think we should look out for over the next decade. Here’s what they had to say:

Brand Building with Digital Advertising.

Prasad Shringarpure. Director at Amplifyer, Ex-Head of Online Marketing at The Iconic, Ex-Regional Head of Sales & Marketing at AOL.

“Digital advertising is perceived to be great for immediate response but not brand building. Over the next decade, the lines between ‘above’ and ‘below’ the line activity will start to blur. Digital ads will become more visually inspiring and their delivery will be more precise. With improvements to measurement of long term response, we’re likely to see digital media emerge as strong brand building channels.”

As mentioned earlier, the importance of digital advertising has already been growing exponentially. Now add on the fact that technology soon turns it into a strong brand building channel. We’ll be likely to see an even heavier reliance on digital channels. If you haven’t been paying attention to changes in the digital space, it’s time to start, and if you have, it’s time to start paying even more attention. 

Convergance Marketing

Jan Wong. Founder of OpenMinds, Forbes 30 Under 30, TedxSpeaker.

“Convergence marketing will be the standard for brands where there is no longer a differentiation between online and offline channels. The need to have an integrated approach from both customer usability and experience will become a foundational expectation of consumers in the next decade.”

With the unprecedented growth in the digital space, it’s easy to overlook the traditional channels. However, over the next decade, companies may need to integrate all their channels to deliver consistency. Many companies are dipping their toes in this now, integrating their online and offline channels to deliver a consistent message. But consumers may want more than that, what about an integrated, continuous conversation? 

Imagine a customer who sees an ad on TV, who then sees an ad on Facebook which then leads to an email and a chat over messenger. Then when he walks into a retail store where the conversation picks up where it left off on messenger. The idea goes beyond integrating just marketing channels. It extends into the likes of PR and the entire user experience as well. 

AI & Machine Learning

Wayne Liew. Head of Advertising at MindValley

“AI and machine learning are no longer jargons thrown around by people wanting to sound smart. These technologies are already affecting the work we do as marketers. Read some articles, watch videos or even take a basic course on them, and try to understand how you should adapt in a world where machines take control over mundane decisions.”

Yes, over the last couple of years, these words have been thrown around more than a hot potato. But make no mistake, AI & Machine learning is already here, and it’s getting better everyday. If you still don’t believe me then you should consider the fact that you can now walk into a dealership and buy a self-driving car. 

AI and machine learning are already used in chatbots, optimizing digital campaigns and big data analysis. Yet, AI is still considered to be within a stage of infancy. Over the next decade, there’s no doubt that we’ll see marketers and engineers get creative with new ways to leverage AI. As Wayne mentioned, watch this space, take a course and gain a better understanding over what might be possible over the next couple of years. Find out more about the pros of cons of the tourism industry incorporating AI here.

Marketing Automation

Ng Khai Yong. Digital Marketing Consultant, Ex-Head of Growth at Keywordtool and Next Academy. 

“Marketing automation will become increasingly important to streamline the transfer of data between the burgeoning usage of online platforms.”

According to Chiefmarketer.com, the average company uses a staggering 91 platforms for marketing purposes. It’s doubtful that companies actually effectively manage all 91 of those platforms daily. And as you’ve probably seen in this passage, changing technologies are extremely likely to further increase these numbers. 

As new platforms emerge, you’ll be forced to adopt them or you’ll get left behind. However, as you begin to adopt more platforms into your marketing tech solutions, it’ll become more difficult to effectively manage them and you’ll get left behind. Hence, the solution, marketing automation. As we reach the end of the decade, now may be the best time to reflect on all the platforms you’ve adopted and figure out how to more effectively manage them. 

Hyperpersonalisation 

Taz Bareham. Chief Marketing Officer at Rezdy.

“We’re leaping beyond the point where personalisation in marketing means adding someone’s name to the top of an email and targeting groups of like minded people. The next decade will see increasing hyper-personalisation – where artificial intelligence alongside real-time third-party data sources will enable individual, dynamic messaging. In short, each person will see a different, contextually sensitive message. The outcome will be ‘radical, data-driven individualism’. Marketers will need to become increasingly specialised in their skillset to stand out.”

At the start of the decade, we started noticing our own names in the subject lines of promotional emails. That was the start of mass personalisation. At first, people loved it, now, we’re not sure if it even makes a difference. But as we mentioned earlier, AI and Machine Learning will continually become more useful and practical. It’s likely that they’ll be used in the context of personalisation. 

Just be vigilant.

As we mentioned earlier, vigilance is all it takes to keep up. We definitely recommend watching the spaces mentioned by these industry experts, but we also recommend looking beyond that! Follow some blogs and marketing websites, scroll through the titles every morning and see if anything stands out. In most cases, it’ll take less than 10 minutes of your day!

If you enjoyed this article – 5 Marketing Industry Experts Share Their Tips on Future-Proofing You & Your Business For The Next Decade – then follow the Rezdy blog. There are a lot of marketing tools and resources designed with businesses like yours in mind.

Start your free demo or trial of Rezdy today.

Want to learn more?

Need more tips on attracting tourists? Click here.

Read our blog on ‘5 ways to attract tourists to your tour or experience business’ here.