I love this time of the year because it is a natural transition from looking back to looking ahead — and the future always is full of possibilities. In the field of marketing, I think there are exciting things happening:
- FCC Auction 97 is on hold until January 5 and current bids are totaling well over 44 billion dollars. When that kind of money is being spent on wireless licenses, it means businesses see the potential for making lots of profit on their investment. Wireless internet access and mobile devices are changing the way people interact with businesses and changing it fast. Marketing has to keep up with that change.
- I think the lines between traditional and digital marketing are fusing together into an integrated experience that customers will increasingly expect. People are engaging with each other in the same room and online at the same time in ways unheard of ten years ago. Marketing messages are no longer going to be effective if they are isolated random statements because people operate in an omnichannel realm. Online, offline, and every way possible, your marketing has to be integrated.
- Social media is making it possible to have relationships, and if your business isn’t presenting some sort of personal human touch, you are missing out on an effective way to engage with your market this coming year.
- Responsive website design and development is not going to be a nice thing to do sometime when you get around to it. It’s an essential thing to do now. There’s no way to measure the potential you lose by ignoring mobile marketing.
Those are a few of the things I see on the horizon, and it will be fun to watch. How about you? What do you see happening in marketing for 2015?