Last week I wrote about how advertising industry trends are likely to impact agencies and agency new business in the coming year. Now I want to take a look at some marketing trends, and consider how agencies can use them to their advantage through reinvention.
Agency adaptation and reinvention have become recurring themes on our blog lately. They are more important than ever for agency new business and growth in the changing industry landscape. Amid so much change, your website and positioning can become dated quickly. But with some effort, you may be able to make minor and more substantive shifts that have a big impact on your agency’s new business success.
In my last post, I quoted Mark Schaefer, who was talking about a trend where marketing budgets and expenditures are still stuck on strategies and channels from several years back, and which are no longer as effective in 2018. If your agency remains stuck with service offerings and positioning that are several years behind, you may have yet to experience the full force of the gap between marketing past and future.
Marketers are going to catch up with what’s currently most effective, which Schaefer reports he’s starting to see happen now. As marketers do this catch-up, budgets may be redirected from agencies. Perhaps less so, if they can figure out a way to get ahead of it (such as by creating compelling offerings around user-generated content, influencers, and reviews, which outshine agencies, advertising, and campaigns, according to Schaefer). Food for thought, though certainly, it's not the only way that agencies will be able to maintain and accelerate momentum in 2018.
As you review the latest trends, think about how you would grade your agency with respect to incorporating any of these hot topics into your positioning and service offerings.
There is a LOT going on in marketing technology in 2018. Many of these have been talked about in previous years but will continue to play a role.
There are a couple of significant trends that will impact the search landscape this year. Is your agency ready to be found on YouTube, via voice-activated searches on mobile devices, or by Alexa?
What types of marketing strategies will brands invest in this year?
Even more so than in previous years, providing a good audience experience (UX, CX) is the expectation. In 2018 consumers will expect brands to provide instant, near-instant, and on-demand service, delivery, and content. Businesses that can’t meet expectations risk falling behind. One example of a brand reaching to meet customer expectations is Target’s recent acquisition of same-day delivery company Shipt.
The days of blogging your way to new business are over—if they ever really existed. In 2018, content saturation is real. Content Marketing is still the #1 top-rated most impactful marketing activity, according to Smart Insights’ research, but it was able to claim that spot with just 20% of the vote (from 16 possible options).
Going forward, the success of your content marketing will not be determined by the content itself but by its transmission, and figuring out how to accomplish that will be a priority (Mark Schaefer). It follows that more brand content strategies will expand beyond publishing on brand-owned properties and reach out to include publishing on third-party websites (Angela Brooks, VP of brand strategy at Terakeet, on Inc.).
Here are a few content trends that may change the way you approach marketing for your agency and agency clients:
How will brands reach consumers in 2018? Here’s a round-up of the trends.
According to Entrepreneur, Twitter may be on its way out. Instagram will continue its rule; perhaps eclipsing Facebook in 2018. LinkedIn is expected to make a comeback. Snapchat’s fate will be decided this year. No one cares about Google Plus (still).
As much as social media continues to grow, it is outpaced by the growth of private messaging apps (Snapchat, Messenger, WhatsApp, etc.). More than half of mobile users use Facebook Messenger (61%) and half use WhatsApp (50%) (according to Ofcom Communications Market research). And the open rate for private messages is 98 percent, compared to email’s 20 percent (Mark Schaefer). Huge difference! As Smart Insights has observed, examples of marketing applications for these social messaging apps include Pizza Hut using Messenger to book tables and IKEA using them for customer research.
Is email dead? No, but expect cold email to be supplemented with multichannel strategies for cold campaigns (Entrepreneur) in 2018.
Want to make sure your agency stays relevant and profitable in 2018? One strategy is to take these marketing trends into consideration and plan accordingly. Here are some ways you could apply this information to your agency’s new business planning for this year:
What do you think? What are your agency’s plans to incorporate marketing trends in 2018?
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