Our favorite finds of everyone else’s marketing predictions for 2016
It’s the beginning of a new year and you know what that means! Coming back from being a bum, hitting the ground running at work, resolutions that most of us won’t keep, and everyones yearly list of marketing predictions that will rule the year. The tradition of publishing these types of marketing predictions has been held for as long as the industry has been around, and it’s not going anywhere so long as technology and the marketing industry continue to evolve.From ad blockers and wearable tech to Snapchat (Shoutout DJ Khaled) and Periscope, the threshold of a new age is being reached, and as always, we must move with it. This year, instead of bothering to come up with our own marketing predictions list that would just echo the hundreds of others available to you, we’ve decided to curate everyone else’s ! YAY! So without further ado, in no particular order, here are our 25 favorite marketing predictions for 2016!
1. Mobile moves beyond the phone
Even as smartphones have come to dominate the desktop, the concept of mobile itself is fast moving beyond just phones. Mobile no longer means just your phone or tablet, but increasingly your watch, your car, even your fashion accessories and the clothes you wear. The rise of wearables is going to have a profound effect on mobile marketing overall. EMarketer expects that two in five Internet users will use wearables by 2019, a figure I personally believe under-represents the total market. Smart watches will likely drive wearable adoption, and over the next few years most watch manufacturers will be incorporating elements of wearables into their phones, dramatically expanding the overall market. Wearables, by their very nature, are more intimate and provide deeper data about consumers. Marketers will need to work hard to tease out the opportunity for each of the different device types, and each one will have its own unique format and requirements.
2. Marketers will chase influencers: What’s considered the most rapidly expanding way to to acquire new customers? It’s influencer marketing. Recent surveys suggest that getting authorities or celebrities to mention or promote products might grow faster than SEO, PPC ads, and content marketing. Tactics to attract influencers vary, but they might include sending free products to review, offering cross promotion, or simply paying a fee
3. Ad blockers threaten online organizations
Many modern technology companies and publishers watch with bated breath as ad blockers become more popular. Ad blockers represent a determined effort on the part of Web surfers to avoid annoying, irrelevant, overreaching and resource-heavy ads that flood their screens, according to eMarketer. However, those ads often fund the online content Web surfers want to view, and that’s bad news for many online organizations.
The situation is expected to worsen for advertisers in 2016 as more users become aware of and choose to implement system-level ad blocking functionality, according to eMarketer. In a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Facebook wrote: “These technologies have had an adverse effect on our financial results, and if such technologies continue to proliferate, in particular with respect to mobile platforms, our future financial results may be harmed.”
– CIO
4. The Old Guard Still Stands
As we adapt to new trends in 2016, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the excitement of up and coming trends. Researching these programs and modeling ROI is no short feat, so it’s best to hone in on the top trends within your industry. That said, 2016 also presents an opportunity to reset and get back to basics. Do some new keyword research. Audit and inventory your on page SEO. React to news and trends within your industry. Dive into your social reporting and evaluate your sending times. Segment your marketing database to see if there is any new persona insight for your efforts. Test new types of marketing emails.
With clearly defined goals, there’s no limit to the marketing methods you can employ throughout 2016. Which channel has caught your eye? Let us know in the comments.
5. The Majority Of Email Opens Will Be On Mobile Devices
During 2015, the percentage of email opens on mobile devices averaged 49 percent, with mobile opens surging in November and December, according to Litmus’ Email Analytics data. Webmail, especially desktop opens, will continue to decline.
In 2016, opens on the Outlook desktop app will fall to around five percent as businesses continue to shift away from expensive desktop suites like Microsoft Office toward more scalable services like Google Apps and Outlook 365. Cloud-based software will continue to disrupt installed and on-premise software.
6. Messaging Apps Will Turn Into eShops
50% of all Indian Internet users definitely access these two apps: Facebook and Whatsapp. This clearly indicates that messaging apps is the next big thing in terms of platform for digital marketers, and 2016 will be the dawn of that age.
In China, there is an messaging app called Weixin, which is a localized version of WeChat app. Around 600 million Chinese are hardcore users of this app; but there is a twist in this story: Besides chatting with their friends (and making calls), users of Weixin also shop heavily on this platform. In fact, average revenue per user on Weixin is $7, which is 7 times that of WhatsApp! They book air tickets, order food, play games, fix doctor’s appointment and lot more.
Very soon, this will become a norm in India as well.
7. Twitter
Twitter has rolled out a lot of major changes this year, including the curated Moments, feed, polls, tweet collections, and polls. Despite these moves, Twitter’s growth was slow in 2015, with only an increase of 11 percent, for an overall market share of 4.8 percent. Twitter is likely to continue to try new ways to increase their market share in 2016 with new features such as allowing tweets to be edited, offering new emoji tools, enhanced engagement options for events (such as customized emojis), and continuing to encourage those with customer service questions to turn to Twitter as opposed to reaching out to companies via other avenues.
There are rumors that Google is considering purchasing Twitter to replace Google+, which would be a huge shake-up in the world of social networking. Twitter has already teamed up with Google by providing Google with data to power search results, and Twitter’s small business groups worked with Google ads on a new marketing campaign. Google doesn’t want to lose any ground to Facebook in the advertising market, and losing its access to social search with the loss of Google+ could really hurt Google’s bottom line.
8. Traditional advertising will integrate more with social media
In 2015, brands will finally figure out how to integrate social media into their traditional advertising campaigns. It may not sound bold, but stick with me on this: commercials are great for generating awareness, but by integrating hashtags and social media channels, brands can tell their story beyond the :30 spot, print ad, or billboard. Traditional is the introduction to a product or service and social media is the dialog and body of the conversation and experience that converts to sale. Millennials make up one-third of the US population, and advertisers’ desire to connect with and engage this audience, and make them into lifelong consumers, will have us seeing more #hashtags in 2015.
9. Engagement ads will be the main display driver.
As search evolves, ad types do as well. The newest and most interactive ad type is called an ‘engagement ad’ which allows for a larger light box to appear once an ad is hovered over for more than 2 seconds or is clicked on. Once the ad is opened, the user can choose between watching videos, shopping directly within the lightbox, or engaging in other ways with the brand, without ever visiting the brand’s site right away. Because of this, brand engagement will dramatically increase, causing incremental conversion gains and increased use of engagement advertising.
10. Increase in Bing search
Since Windows 10 launched in July, Bing advertisers have been expecting to see a lot of opportunity for more search volume, because Bing is its default search engine. Windows 10 users will instinctively search with Bing because it’s built in to the user experience. Instead of launching an app or browser, users can easily access an “ask me anything” box which appears at the bottom of the screen at all times, and Cortana (a virtual assistant similar to Apple’s Siri) defaults to Bing search results.
Additionally, Microsoft’s Edge browser (which has replaced Internet Explorer) allows users to highlight text in the browser and right click for Cortana to bring up Bing results in a sidebar. It also just launched Bing Native Ads, which can appear across MSN.com (the default Windows 10 start page) and are managed within the Bing Ads interface. As long as Windows 10 remains relevant, we predict a continued increase in Bing search in 2016.
11. Death of single-page websites
We have always advised clients against adopting this trend. It’s no secret that SEO is much more challenging for single-page sites. Since the content is saturated on one page, search engines will only index that page for keywords. This means you’re missing opportunities to have multiple pages indexed for a variety of associated keywords.
A multi-page site gives you more chances to be known for all the things your company does, and it gives consumers multiple site entry points. We foresee the single page trend going away in 2016 as marketers realize their sites are being penalized for this design, and they’re losing out on valuable leads.
12. Influencer marketing will be responsible for 100 million in holiday sales in 2016.
According to a study by Tomoson, businesses are making 6.50 for every dollar spent on influencer marketing. With this massive return on investment, it’s safe to say brands will rake in even higher sales in 2016, particularly during the spending storm we all know as the holiday season. Recognizing this, global brands like Hallmark, Scotch and Kraft have already partnered with influencers as part of their holiday campaigns this year. Influencer marketing campaigns are also one of the most targeted methods for driving in-store traffic during the holiday season, which is crucial at a time when more and more consumers are spending their money on flashy Cyber Monday sales rather than trekking to brick-and-mortar stores.
13. Marketers Will A/B Test Technologies Before Buying Them
In keeping with the theme of getting more from their technology investments, marketers will increasingly test and compare new applications before buying them. This is made possible by the emergence of tag management providers, which make it easy to add or remove digital marketing solutions from web and mobile channels, compared with manual tagging.
This helps marketers dramatically shorten deployments, from months to hours, and avoid traditional “vendor lock-in,” where the time and cost to replace one solution with another really wasn’t worth the hassle, especially across a large digital presence.
This is the year savvy marketers will learn to test drive their shiny new solutions, even A/B testing the performance of different vendors, before buying them.
Although marketers may have hit “peak martech,” according to Brinker, technology will continue to be a major focus among marketers in 2016. We should see these trends play out in the new year and beyond, as marketers feel the pressure to maximize their technology usage, embrace mobile marketing (finally), and pay heed to growing privacy concerns.
14. Mobile Payments Will Take Off
Despite the ascent of ecommerce and mcommerce over the past decade, trillions of dollars are transacted annually in the US at brick-and-mortar retailers—a reality that isn’t going away anytime soon, if ever. But the divide between digital and physical commerce will be further bridged in 2016, as mobile wallets become a standard feature on newer smartphones and more retailers accept proximity payments from systems like Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay and others.
But simply swapping cash and credit or debit cards with a tap or scan of a smartphone won’t be enough to convince the majority of consumers to change decades of ingrained payment behavior. Connecting more of the retail commerce experience to mobile wallets, especially when it comes to offers, coupons, rewards and loyalty, will be critical to getting more people to pay with their phones.
15. Video will come under scrutiny
2016 will be the year of virtuous video, the year when the use of mobile video as an editorial and marketing tool is properly put under scrutiny.
Customers want to watch and share great creative, and marketers want measurable results. As such, I predict the beginning of the end for one second auto-play mute video played out within walled gardens. There will be pressure on creative quality as demand for video grows exponentially, and then pressure on CPMs (cost per mille) as supply follows it. In both cases the brands that make the best choices will harness video most effectively as part of an overall customer conversation.
16. Native Advertising
Ad blockers are the modern-day marketer’s worst online nightmare. Although ad blockers, which prevent ads from being shown on websites, are not “new,” they’ve been all over the headlines ever since Apple revealed the mobile operating systems powering iPhones and iPads, iOS 9, would now support these sneaky little ad killers.
Why the big fuss? Well, online advertising fuels the majority of websites across the Internet.
“Advertising represents $350 billion of the U.S. gross national product, and consumers depend on it to help make $9 trillion of annual spending decisions,” reports AdvertisingAge. “Some websites, particularly those with millennial audiences, are already losing up to 40% of their ad revenue because of ad blocking.”
Whether or not ad blockers will affect you in 2016, the numbers show that it’s worth putting in place preventative measures to ensure your advertising goals are not ripped to shreds. This is where native advertising comes into play.
Since native ads look, read, and feel like non-promotional content, ad blocking technology does not prevent them from displaying. Native ads have already been trending, but with more ad blocking panic setting in, these babies should become an essential part of your digital marketing strategy in 2016.
17. Apple Will Release A Siri-Infused Headset That Syncs With iPhones And The Apple Watch
In addition to a new iPhone with a screen size similar to the 5S, Apple will put effort into a voice-controlled headset (a la Jawbone) that can be used to read and dictate texts and emails, access map directions and more.
This new accessory will bring more relevance to the Watch by allowing users to do more without taking out their phones. It will also bring new relevance to the plain text version and watch-HTML version of an email, the latter being the portion of an email that would be most likely preferentially read.
18. Social Robots Will Become Participatory and Take on More Roles
We will see great advancement in our social interaction with machines. Humanizing technology is not a new idea, but the recent expansion of social robots, autonomous machines that interact and communicate with humans by following social behaviors, has moved into the real world.
The next generation of smart robots will not only be responsive but participatory, in retail and the home.. They can understand, predict, remember and engage. They will know how to find information, locate where it is stored, and even understand how it is integrated into brand and consumer ecosystems.
Retailers and marketers will ask themselves if they have their data and information architecture in a good place. For example, if JIBO the robot was asked to recommend a store to purchase a dress for an upcoming event, will it be able to consider your store, locate it, and recommend it based on how you have your system set up?
19. The Rise of 360-Degree Video
Back in June, I wrote an article on 360-degree video and what marketers needed to know. One big thing that has changed since that article was published is that viewers can now watch 360-degree video on Facebook. These videos even allow viewers to pan and rotate the video within the Facebook newsfeed player!
One of the main points I discussed in that article was how this technology was going to change video storytelling. Big brands like Star Wars have already begun experimenting with 360-degree video. In September, it released a 360-degree video to promote the Star Wars movie release.
Marketers can expect to see other companies experiment with this style of online video in 2016. The combination of 360-degree video and drones is also something that will take off in the new year as the ability to join an aerial perspective with a 360-degree immersive video experience is really unique. This video from 360-degree labs is an example of the combination.
I expect the major platforms to continue battling it out for 360-degree video content in 2016. Look for both YouTube and Facebook to continue investing in their 360-degree video playback technology and user experience.
20. Marketing departments will reduce their PPC budgets
PPC has been an easy standby for years. But unfortunately, more often than not first page bids has become exceedingly expensive when it comes to words that you and all your competitors are vying for. Along with that, ad block and the average searcher now prevent and ignore the noise of millions of ads that are assailing them. With this in mind, 2016 will be a time to reduce your PPC budget and reallocate the funds to channels that can deliver quality leads inexpensively. Instead, PPC will be used primarily as a way to fill in the gaps from your organic search.
21. Instagrammers and YouTubers will be the rising social stars
Twitteratis ruled influencer programmes in 2015. However, Instagrammers and YouTubers will be most sought after in 2016 as real-time visual content drives maximum engagement. New social platforms like Periscope, #fame and Snapchat will see increased adaption as they encourage real-time sharing of user-generated content.
22. “Dark social” wins in Rio
Currently, 75 per cent of all sporting content shared online is via dark social channels (email or instant messenger) compared to the 25 per cent of sport-related content that’s shared on public social networks.
In this Olympic year, we’ll see this dark social figure increase further. The brands that successfully capitalise on the social buzz around Rio will do so by shifting their social investment towards the more intimate and valuable world of “dark social”.
23. Mobile budgets and resources get serious
Mobile’s influence and impact on this year’s holiday shopping season will usher in an accelerated shift in focus toward mobile. According to Forrester Research, mobile is predicted to be the fastest growing channel among all digital channels (38 percent CAGR), so look for an increasing number of brands to create mobile BHAGs – which stands for big, hairy, audacious goals.
Evidence of transformation started in 2014, when Hilton announced it would invest $500 million in mobile technologies. Others across all verticals will follow Hilton’s lead in the coming months ahead.
24. Now Culture
In a world where consumers are demanding everything now, timing is critical for brands and marketers. Consumers are interacting with brands for shorter periods of time, across multiple platforms and are expecting different levels of brand engagement.
Understanding the consumer journey will be key and means having the right data strategy in place. However, implementing that on the spot to positive effect in the face of impatient consumers can often be a challenge.
From an advertising perspective, communications should be primed around all possible journey outcomes and be adaptive, reactive, contextual, time-sensitive and, crucially, in the right place at the right time – delivering the right messages to the right consumer.
Once you provide instant, there is no going back. But consumers will be more susceptible to switching in this culture of ‘now’, so take advantage of this rather than suffer as a consequence.
25. Goodbye data preparation, hello data science
IIA predicts that automated data curation and management will free up analysts and data scientists to do more of the work they want to do. Forrester says that in 2016, machine learning will begin to replace manual data wrangling and data governance dirty work, and vendors will market these solutions as a way to make data ingestion, preparation, and discovery quicker. Through 2020, according to IDC, spending on self-service visual discovery and data preparation tools will grow 2.5x faster than traditional IT-controlled tools for similar functionality.
– Forbes