As we say goodbye to 2017, we were pleasantly surprised at the topics that garnered the most views and shares this past year. The customer experience, marketing strategies, and metrics took top honors. Prior to 2017, the topics that were most popular were more tactical in nature.
Here are our top read articles in 2017:
This article took a look at several emerging technology trends and how they would impact the customer experience; The Conversational Web, Convergence of Social Media, Influencer Marketing and E-Commerce, Internet of Things, Data and Analytics. All three of these trends will continue into 2018. Voice will continue to evolve and give internet access to underserved markets. If you haven’t seen the YouTube video of the Italian grandma learning how to use a Google Home device, I recommend that you watch it. It drives this point home – no pun intended!
Influencer marketing has definitely moved into the pay-to-play realm with its convergence with ecommerce and we expect that to continue however, the long term business model for this is still unclear.
Data and analytics will continue to advance and give marketers better metrics and tools to target their audiences.
I was happy to see that marketing strategy was top-of-mind. This article talks about adopting Amazon’s wildly successful Flywheel strategy for marketing as well as the Rule of Seven. Many will argue that the Rule of Seven is outdated but we don’t agree. We still believe that you have to touch your customers and prospects several times before they want to engage with you.
Public relations will always be difficult to quantify but with new big data apps and PR tools like TrendKite, we have more tools than ever to determine the value of PR efforts. Earned media, even though it can’t always be quantified, is still one of the most sought after programs for any size company. Earned media means you have passed multiple levels of scrutiny before coverage is earned.
In my opinion, integration is going to be a key mantra for marketers this year. Prior to digital, marketers were only successful if they integrated all aspects of their marketing. Once digital came along, it was treated as a separate entity from traditional collateral, events, direct mail and advertising. In fact, digital was even siloed into SEO, email, social, and content marketing. Why?
In 2018, we are going to see all aspects of marketing, online and offline, integrated into single cohesive programs.
This doesn’t surprise us at all. With search engines changing their algorithms regularly, we expect this topic will be hot indefinitely. Organic SEO has been the Holy Grail for quite a while but paid search is making a big impact.
No surprise here. Companies of all sizes need to launch their products and services. What is the number one reason product launches fail? The belief that a launch is a singular event and not a process where the entire company is involved. earn about the elements that are required for a successful product launch by downloading our ebook below.
