Marketing is usually on the leading edge of technology and social trends. The winner is the one who comes up with the best ideas before the rest. Technology is playing an ever-increasing roll in how we communicate and deliver information. So, what will be the focus for marketers this year? No one really knows for sure, but here are some educated guesses.
If you’ve spent any time on the web or on any of the major social media platforms you must have seen a post or advertisement using 360-degree virtual views. Nearly all the top video editing software packages now come with 360-degree video support which gives marketers and amateurs the ability to produce intriguing 360-degree video content. Among the first that have already been using this technology are real estate agents. Virtual reality is here to stay, and 360-degree video will soon be an effective tool for many forms advertising.
Artificial Intelligence is another technology that we’ll be seeing more and more in marketing. Customer support and cross selling chatbots have been slowly making their presence known. This year, companies are expected to dedicate more resources into testing and implementing artificial intelligence technologies for customer service and cross sales.
Voice searching is surging in popularity and there are more apps being created everyday to enable faster and more comprehensive voice searching. “ComScore” has predicted that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches. It’s time that the SEO community take notice and optimize for voice searches.
The paradigm continues to shift away from television advertising to digital advertising. Data shows that consumers continue to spend less time with their television sets, and more time with their digital devices. The field is wide open for marketers as the data shows that 49% of organizations still do not have a clearly defined digital marketing strategy.
In the end, these are all just educated guesses, it’s up to the smart marketer to pick which ones to focus on.
