Future marketing trends (PBL 7)

During the seventh PBL, we were able to come up with a problem that we were interested in. Therefore we created the following problem: What are trends for future marketing?
The learning objectives to this problem are:

1. What will make good marketing content?
2. How will mobile marketing change in the future?

What will make good marketing content?
Zach Bulygo, a blogger for KISSmetrics, mentions several ingredients that make great content.

1. Create original content: your ideas should be original. Rehashing the same concepts or other posts over and over again is not original. If your content is played out, no one will link to it - and that defeats the purpose of writing content in the first place. There are two rules in life to achieve this: "You get what you pay for" and "If you do not have anything useful to say, then do not say it all". These two points will keep the company on the path of making quality content that will yield returns for years to come. 
2. Always focus on creating strong headlines: a good headline sparks interest and invites readers in. The statistics from Copyblogger prove that 80% of people will read your headlines, but only 20% of those people will read the rest of your content. That is why the headline is as important as the article or post itself. 
3. Make your content actionable: the best content gives the user a sense of how to apply the information; it respects the user and provides them with the assurance that they know best how to use the material. 
4. Be able to provide answers: provide answers to the problems of the users, to what they are looking for. 
5. Be accurate in your reporting and sourcing of information.
6. Create engaging and thought-provoking content: an engaged audience hangs on to your every word and takes in all that you write or say. A few tips: leave users with questions, have an important and promising introduction and people love stories. 

Yoav Vilner mentions on entrepreneur.com some content marketing methods that are used by winning companies:

1. Leveraging influences: influencer marketing is the force of nature shaking the online marketing world. It is expensive and it works. Companies can use the app Mention. Mention allows brands to identify the best influencers for their brand and to know the amount of traction his or her brand will offer. Mention also allows companies to connect with the users directly.
2. Making it move: having a compelling user experience is exactly what your brand needs to draw your customer in and retain them. Interactive content is also a highly useful way for testing audiences' online preferences. 
3. Creating for your customer: 61% of consumers are more likely to buy from a company that delivers personal content that is specific to their wants and needs. 
4. Letting the journey drive content: understand the customer journey so that your brand can improve it. By creating a road map for this epic, you can position your content to tell a consistent story. 

There are also different trends concerning good marketing content.
The first one is user generated content. This content is provided by users and consumers and therefore useful for a company. According to Eric Siu on blog.hubspot.com, this technique allows modern businesses to delegate some of the brand-building responsibilities to their customer. Having users contribute to your content creation has different advantages:

• Consumers are more interested in hearing the views of their peers than reading cleverly written sales messages;
• Consumers trust user-generated content more than all other forms of media. 

For example, Burberry launched a website where users could upload and comment on pictures of people wearing Burberry products. Burberry's e-commerce sales increased 50% year-over-year following the launch of the site.

Another great example is the Starbucks' White Cup Contest launched in April 2014. Customers across the country were asked to doodle on their Starbucks cups and submit pictures as entries. The winning entry would be the template for a new limited edition Starbucks cup. This contest was a great way for Starbucks to earn publicity and prove that it strongly valued customer feedback.

How will mobile marketing change in the future?
The number of mobile users is increasing every year. Therefore it is important to be aware of the mobile marketing and how it will change in the future. Fahad Muhammad mentions some mobile marketing trends on instapage.com.

1. Video ads: mobile video ads increase brand awareness and also help with lead generation. You have to create video ads that your visitors simply cannot ignore. 
2. Text messaging: SMS has a high open and read rate with 90% of people reading a text message within the first three minutes. An eWeek survey also found that over 80% of people are now using text messaging for business purposes. Another trending thing is a Text-to-join campaign. This is a simple strategy a company can use to get potential customers to obtain to a subscriber list and then segment those customers to promote specific orders. 
3. Using Snapchat to cultivate customer relationships: customers are craving for this kind of interaction: an engaging marketing experience they can enjoy seeing - not just a bunch of static ads showing up in their newsfeeds. 
4. Creating app experiences: the app experience is just always better than the mobile friendly experience, especially in terms of flexibility and compatibility. Apps allow your customers to access your service instantly - something that is going to be required for marketers by the end of 2016. 
5. Social mobile shopping: for example on Pinterest, there is a "Buy it" option, so users are able to buy what they like, right then and there. Facebook is also in the process of testing a "Buy button", which will allow customers to buy products directly from their news feeds. 
6. Native adds: these ads do not look like ads at all. They simply appear in the social network newsfeeds like any other post does. For example on Instagram, which is a great network for native advertising. 

Momentology surveyed fifty marketing experts to get their takes on what lies ahead for mobile marketing in the coming year.

• Social networks are getting smaller, for example Facebook, and the more private messaging networks like Snapchat are on the rise. 
• The rise of ad blocking is largely a response to two major consumer concerns: privacy and intrusiveness. Through this rise of ad blocking, companies have to be more creative. 
• Marketers have to be able to find ways to fit their brands into their customers' stories, and not pull the customers into their stories.
• Brands will look to develop more mobile-first employee reward programs that will deliver bite-size training content, boost employee engagement and reward employees for their successful behaviours with digital incentives. 
• Virtual reality will be more prominent, which will be used for both business and gaming. 

Sources
Bulygo, Z. (2012), The nine ingredients that make great content, accessed 7 October 2016, from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/ingredients-of-great-content/

Lacy, L. (2016), Mobile marketing trends 2016: 50 experts on the future of apps, ads & search, accessed 7 October 2016, from https://www.linkdex.com/en-us/inked/mobile-marketing-trends-2016/

Muhammad, F. (2016), 6 mobile marketing trends that you need to get in on, now, accessed 7 October 2016, from https://instapage.com/blog/mobile-marketing-trends-2016

Siu, E. (2015), 10 user generated content campaigns that actually worked, accessed 7 October 2016, from http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/examples-of-user-generated-content#sm.00000nkgrb6dmvf1aq9vntkflqfwo

Vilner, Y (2016), 4 content marketing methods to stay above your competition, accessed 7 October 2016, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252784