The complexity of marketing is growing sharply, owing largely to the adoption of new technologies, with a focus on the personalisation of content, video content, mobile device optimisation, social media marketing and content marketing in particular.
A report by the Economist Intelligence Unit supports the opinion “that marketing will own the customer experience by 2020”, marketers are now snubbing the blanketed, mass market approach, in favour of personalising the customer marketing experience to each individual user.
The adoption of new technologies supports this notion, social media, the internet, mobile internet and mobile apps are set to be the top marketing channels by 2020. And these channels allow for greater personalisation over the customer experience as opposed to traditional channels such as tv and radio, which both lack two way interaction with the end user. Personalisation creates a more positive customer experience and is said to better customer loyalty and improve brand perception.
However, returning to my first point, tailoring services to each individual user makes marketing complex and this could be why many SME’s (Small to Medium Enterprises) don’t use digital marketing to drive their business, despite more than three quarters of them believing that digital marketing is critical to their success.
Small businesses are often intimidated by digital marketing, citing the expense and difficulty of use as barriers to use the technology. The digital landscape is fast paced and driven by trends, which also makes it complicated to invest in.
There are also new challenges such as the rise in user ad blocking, which is set to cost content publishers $27bn in lost revenues by 2020. Adoption of ad blocking software is strongest amongst young people, who are the primary users of such technology and with in-app ad blocking set to appear soon, this presents a large problem for digital advertisers.
This supports my view that digital marketing is becoming more focused on tailor-fitted, personalised content that is individual and valuable to the end user, the huge uptake of ad blocking software is a backlash in protest of the traditional blanketed marketing approach which offers little value to many users and may be seen as a nuisance. It is essential for firms to build up consumer’s trust in digital adverts discourage the use of ad blocking if this medium is to still have impact. Google’s Accelerated Mobile Page and Acceptable Ad Initiatives are attempting to do so this but my gut feeling is that they will see little success. Digital marketers must provide users with useful, engaging content, not pester and frustrate them with mass marketed advertising.
I found these articles useful whilst writing this piece:
Why the marketing and CMO role is getting increasingly tougher
SMEs see digital marketing is important – yet don’t practice what they preach
Adblocking to cost £27 billion – 10% of advertising revenues – by 2020
thomasfallondigmar 