A global survey of 2,500 marketers highlighted key trends, opportunities and challenges for marketing professionals. Many businesses have realized the importance of their digital presence. Monitoring new developments in this area is necessary to take advantage of business opportunities and identify threats.

Customer experience will be a priority for C2C marketers in 2014. It is the most exciting opportunity for 20 percent of respondents, who are focused on enhancing their customers’ digital experience. Mobile marketing is the second most attractive marketing opportunity for businesses worldwide. It will probably only grow in importance, as the number of people who own cell phones and tablets increase.

Mobile technologies have made it much easier for companies to access and communicate with their customers, but there are some challenges ahead. For example, cell phone screens are quite small, which requires marketers to adapt their messages and communicate brand image with very little available space.

For companies marketing their products to other businesses, content marketing will be the key opportunity in 2014, with 24 percent of survey participants giving it the highest ranking. The main purpose of content marketing is to engage business consumers with various forms of content (video, images, blog posts, ebooks, etc). at the various steps of the buying cycle. It seems that B2B marketing is quite information intensive, while B2C marketers focus on the whole experience.

It is interesting how personalization was the main priority for only 10 percent of respondents. One of the most recent examples where personalization is being used to increase sales is grocery shopping. ScanIt! mobile application provides consumers with different offers depending on whether they are time- or financially constrained. For example, it will send financially constrained consumers coupon deals, while time constrained consumer will be able to order deli and pick it up whenever they can.

References:

Blog: http://www.getelastic.com/key-digital-trends/

Hamstra, M. (2014, January 13). Targeted marketing: Retailers step up personalization. Supermarket News. Retrieved from LexisNexis Academic database.

Murthy, A. A. (2011). Content marketing. PRIMA, 2(1), 31-45. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1478064964?accountid=14656