The New Year always brings hopes of new strategies, idea, goals and successes. But before we dive into what’s next, we thought it would be a good idea to reflect on the top 15 most important marketing and technology trends from 2015. Jen Bullett and Kalev Peekna count down 15 strategies, trends and tactics that Business-to-Business and Professional Services marketers should keep on their radar as they delve into 2016. Specifically, we cover topics including lead generation, predictive marketing, brand storytelling and cross-channel metrics.
4. 1. Brands Are Back
2. Millennial Madness
3. Markets of One
4. The Everything Effect
5. Orchestration
6. Digilog Smashup
7. Service Design
8. Digital Details
5. 1. Brands Are Back
2. Millennial Madness
3. Markets of One
4. The Everything Effect
5. Orchestration
6. Digilog Smashup
7. Service Design
8. Digital Details
7. “When the financial crisis hit in 2008, a certain word went missing in business. And,
another word became all too powerful. The word, invest, and the inertia behind it,
lost traction in B2B business. Rocked by the financial crisis, many plans were
shelved. Collecting dust. The word, cut, became dominant in business vocabulary.
A few short years later, B2B business leaders in the C-Suite are waking up from this
slumber of cost cutting and extreme focus on tactics … Today’s business leaders are
having a renewed drive towards top-line revenue growth. Rediscovering the critical
role branding plays in contributing to overall growth and profitability. ”
Source: Tony Zambito
8. Brand is your strategy.
Brand is your calls to action.
Brand is your customer service.
Brand is the way you speak.
Brand is the whole array of your communication tools.
Brand is your people.
Brand is your facilities.
Brand is your logo and visuals, too.
Source: HBR. A Logo Is Not A Brand
9. • Authenticity helps fuel success in today's over-traded
markets, as consumers search for greater meaning and
sincerity from the brands they choose.
• At its heart, authenticity is about practicing what you
preach; being totally clear about who you are and what
you do best.
• When a brand's rhetoric gets out of sync with
customers' actual experiences, the brand's
integrity and future persuasiveness suffers.
Source: The Economist
Authenticity
10. Authenticity: Commercial Value
Performance on 'Core Authenticity' drives business performance. The stronger a brand's Core
Authenticity, the more likely people are to become advocates for the brand, and the greater the
share a brand will have of high value customers in its market.
Source: authenticbrandindex.com
11. Year after year, CEOs worry about talent gaps and the
effect they have on their organizations’ competitiveness.
• In 2014, 63 percent said availability of skills was a
serious concern (5 percent more than the previous year).
Gaps in certain high-demand fields (most notably in the
STEM fields) cause even greater anxiety.
• A study by McKinsey found nine in 10 executives say
they have a “pressing need” for digital talent, such as
developers, analysts and UX designers.
Source: McKinsey & Company
Employee
63%
16. Although many long-established, heavily advertised but
mediocre products are losing force, and the fickleness of
consumers is making it harder for them to maintain
premium prices, for those firms that get the product right
and have a genuine story to tell, the rewards can still be
huge.
The textbook example of this is Apple, whose devices’
superior design and ease of use make it a powerful brand in
a commoditized market. Last year, it had only 6% of the
revenues in the personal-computer market, but 28% of the
profits. That’s real authenticity.
Source: The Economist
Premium Pricing
19. Millennials are now the largest, most diverse generation in the U.S. population – 75.3 million.
Millennials have been shaped by technology.
Millennials value community, family and creativity in their work.
Millennials have invested in human capital more than previous generations.
Millennial women have more labor market equality than previous generations.
Millennials tend to get married later than previous generations.
Millennials are armed with $200 billion in annual buying power.
Millennials are sitting on both sides of me as I write this presentation at Starbucks.
Millennial Madness
20. Influx of millennial founders and leaders in the
coming year, competing with the likes of Pinterest,
Airbnb, Facebook and Instagram, to name a few.
Watch out for more horizontal leadership,
collaborative working techniques and new career
paths.
Millennials are career-driven, politically
progressive and–despite popular belief–do indeed
develop strong brand loyalty when presented with
quality products and actively engaged by brands.
Millennial Founders
24. Generation Z is a generation
that would seem to claim San
Francisco as its cultural
capital, the place where the
apps and interfaces by which
it learns the world were
made. In embracing
“founders,” it affirms the idea
that creativity is essential—
and performed through
business enterprise.
Don’t Get Too Comfortable with Millennials ….
25. This guy might be the next
Zuckerberg or Managing Partner.
Imagine selling Professional Services
to him or trying to hire him.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
27. Marketing to One Account at a Time
In 2015, we saw ever-increasing pressure
within B2B firms for Marketing and Business
Development to unite their tactics around
areas like lead generation and nurturing.
As part of the response to this pressure,
Account-based Marketing encourages us to
reconsider what we consider our “market,”
and to tailor our communications into
increasingly individualized formats.
“Account-based marketing (ABM), also
known as key account marketing, is a
strategic approach to business marketing
in which an organization considers and
communicates with individual prospect or
customer accounts as markets of one.”
-- Wikipedia
28. But How to Make That Happen?
Agreeing that key accounts should
receive customized marketing and
sales is easy enough…
…Identifying who comprises the “key
accounts” is tough but doable…
...But pulling off the level of
customization required, without an
influx of resources, is a real struggle.
29. Personalization to the Rescue!
The struggle for personalized communication
is one area where digital can offer a real
solution, in the form of personalization.
When first approaching the idea of
personalization in a digital context, most
marketers in search of ideas turn first to
Amazon.
And it’s not a bad place to start. Amazon’s
recommendation engine is second to none at
connecting us quickly to relevant purchases
among what might otherwise be a totally
overwhelming set of choices.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that any reader
interested in design thinking must be in want of Post-It notes.
30. How Hot is Personalization?
A recent report from PwC and Forbes, Leading with customer-focused content: driving growth
through personalized experience (Jan 2016), reveals much about the state of personalization
among marketers today:
How important is personalization for reaching customers?
37% 57% 6%Respondents
Critical Important Other
100%"Trailblazers"
Critical
94% of all respondents say personalization is
critical or important to achieving their
business goals.
100% of high-performing respondents
(“trailblazers”) say personalization is critical.
32. Personalization Grows in Sophistication
For years, we’ve been dreaming of
offering experiences that serve
exactly the content that each
person wants, and nothing more.
However, in 2015, the
personalization trend grew more
expansive, and more sophisticated
in its techniques. It’s now about a
lot more than just automated
suggestions.
It’s about understanding who
someone is, and demonstrating
the importance of the
relationship you share.
Automated Suggestions
“See also…”
“You might like…”
“Read next…”
Audience Selection
Alignment to industry,
geography, or other
market segment
Localization
Adjustment to local
interests and languages
Marketing Automation
Email linking to landing
page that presents
individualized information
CRM Integration
Linking website activity to
CRM profile and vice
versa
Email Personalization
“Not your father’s
newsletter”: High-touch
and individualized
Social
Engaging users in a
1:1 fashion
UX Personalization
Changing the UX/UI to
match buying stage or
level of engagement
33. The North Face: Personalizing Search
The North Face paired with IBM’s
Watson to completely reimagine the
product search experience.
Instead of complicated filters, or
endless suggestions, it asks targeted
questions about where, when, and
how you will use the product – and
provides truly intelligent
suggestions.
34. Quartz: Text the News
As a news aggregation site, Quartz could have launched a personalized app like Flipboard or
Apple News. Instead, it shifted the experience from browsing to interaction, through a text-like
interface that moves quickly from “personalized” to fully individualized.
36. I’m not proud of
it, but I yell at
my computer
when it’s slow.
The Everything Effect
37. “The on-demand economy is all about “now” and
“transparency.” I need my taxi now; I don’t want
to pick up the phone to call or raise my hand to
flag down a vehicle. Don’t tell me when my cab
will arrive; show me on a map how far away it is.”
Source: Forbes
The Everything Effect
40. Now: Consumers will want to interact anywhere at any time.
Can I: They will want to do truly new things as disparate kinds of
information (from financial accounts to data on physical
activity) are deployed more effectively in ways that create
value for them.
For me: They will expect all data stored about them to be targeted
precisely to their needs, or used to personalize what they
experience.
Simply: They will expect all interactions to be easy.
Source: McKinsey & Co
Check Yourself
42. You Don’t Need Any More Tactics
In the past ten years,
“content strategy” and
“digital strategy” meant
assembling an ever-
expanding range of tactics.
B2B marketers now
average active use of 13
tactics, of which 12 are
inherently digital.
Source: B2B Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America.
92%
83%
81%
80%
77%
77%
76%
69%
68%
65%
62%
61%
48%
47%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Social Media
eNewsletters
Articles (website)
Blogs
In-person Events
Case Studies
Videos
Illustrations / Photos
White Papers
Online Presentations
Infographics
Webinars/Webcasts
Research Reports
Microsites
43. Marketing Orchestration is a Top Challenge
The top transformational
problem in marketing is no
longer “how to be digital.”
According to Forrester Research,
the top problem is about how to
coordinate and integrate
fragmented activities into a
coherent customer experience.
In short, the new goal is
orchestration.
18% 18%
17% 14%
13%
13%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Long-term Relationships Cross-channel
Experience
Which are your marketing organization’s top three
goals?
First Second Third
Source: Commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting
on behalf of Responsys, 2013
44. Marketing Orchestration
An approach that focuses not on delivering
standalone campaigns, but instead on
optimizing a set of related cross-channel
interactions that, when added together, make
up a personalized customer experience.
45. Avoiding Brand Fade
Digital has not only changed the look and feel of our brands; it has also
undermined our ability to rely solely on visuals to create brand associations.
Cross-channel “success” for digital content leads it farther away from marketing-
controlled contexts. Brand associations must be inside the content itself.
46. Brand-Integrated (Not Edited) Content
Integrating brand associations into
content requires more than sharp editing.
Tone and style are important, but so too
are the themes, formats, narrative
approach, and even target audiences –
aspects too often decided without
marketing or editorial guidance.
TED@BCG: Though there is no “traditional”
visual brand framework, the brand
associations are clear – and apparent even as
the content is shared throughout other digital
networks.
47. Stable Patterns are Emerging
In areas like social media, we now have a better understanding of which
tactics are effective for different kinds of content.
48. What’s Your Cannonball?
In B2B marketing, the “cannonball” is the Big Campaign, centered around a key
piece of thought leadership created and distributed in multiple contexts.
49. Arrange Timing to Create a Cadence
Developing a true cadence is about more than just timing individual pieces. It’s
about arranging pieces to carry key themes across time and get the most ROI
from each content investment.
PwC Annual Global CEO Survey
Pre-launch Launch Post-launch
52. Even in the digital era, our surveys show that personal
interactions with sales reps remain the most influential factor —
across touch points — for B2B customers. That makes
salespeople a great source of information about the degree to
which customers see your products as differentiated or worth a
premium.
Source: McKinsey & Company
Behaviorally, we know that while consumers are spending more
time online, there remains a growing urge to get in touch with
the physical world.
Source: The Guardian
Digilog Mashup
56. What is Service Design?
Service Design is a rapidly growing and
maturing field, but still only vaguely
understood by most B2B businesses.
In its simplest form, Service Design is
the applicationof designthinking to
the delivery of customer services, as
opposed to products.
Like User-Experience Design, it’s an
outgrowth of the fields of industrial
design and human-centered design.
57. SD Methodologies are User-Centric
Given its heritage, it’s probably not surprising that most Service Design
methodologies are inherently user-centric. They start with ethnographic research,
iterate through design, and lead to productions “models” that are continuously
measured and tweaked:
58. The Tools are Familiar
In fact, the tools used in Service Design are almost identical in form to
those used in digital UX design:
Personas Journeys Touchpoint Maps
59. So How is it Different?
UX SD
Research
Personas
Journeys
Prototyping
Participatory
Qualitative &
Quantitative
Digital
Details
New Tech
Deep
Qualitative
Analog
Concepts
New Business
Models
Broad
Experience Design
60. SD: Improving the Ground Experience
If you’ve flown recently through
a modern airport (i.e., not
O’Hare), then you’ve probably
already experienced the
outcome of some noted
service design efforts.
Virgin Atlantic’s service design
effort focused on the ground
experience at Heathrow
Terminal 3. It led to a 75%
reduction in check-in times,
and a 30% increase in overall
satisfaction.
62. Details: Quick Trends for 2016
Now for the fun stuff. These trends may not be as broad or far-reaching, but are
worth keeping an eye on as inspiration for your 2016 efforts.
1. Big Imagery
2. Flat 2.0
3. Performance as Design
4. Interactive Timelines
5. Gridlock
63. Big Imagery
Big imagery remains a strong
trend heading into 2016.
Now designers are putting
greater thought into how that
space is used, introducing
motion and interaction into the
creation of that first impression.
66. Flat 2.0
Turns out that flat design – a
huge, ongoing trend since 2012 –
can sometimes be unhelpfully…
flat.
It the most radical cases, key
signifiers of clickability or
interaction get removed. And
users can get confused.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-
design-long-exposure/
67. Enter the Almost Flat
No one is going back to full realism
or skeuomorphism. Instead,
designers are exploring ways to
reintroduce subtle elements like
shadows, gradients, 3D layers, and
movement to guide users through
the interface.
71. Performance as Design
It started with our phones. Ever since
Apple and Google put the web in our
pockets, people have shifted from
desktops to devices that are smaller,
slower, and connected to shaky
networks.
And that was before we got “WiFi” on
airplanes.
User patience is low: 40% of users start
to abandon a site after waiting only 3
seconds.
Slowness: not just a phone problem anymore.
72. Faster is Always Better
Facebook:
• Facebook pages that are 500ms slower
result in a 3% drop-off in traffic; 1000ms
gets a 6% drop-off.
Amazon:
• If Amazon increases page load time by
+100ms, they lose 1% of sales.
Google:
• If Google increases page load time by
+500 ms, they get 25% fewer searches.
Shopzilla:
• Shopzilla reduced page load times from
7 seconds to 2 seconds and saw a 7% –
12% increase in conversion rate.
Yahoo:
• If Yahoo increases page load times by
+400ms they see a 5 – 9% drop in full-
page traffic.
General:
• 14% of users will start shopping at a
different site if a page loads too slow.
• 40% of users will abandon a website that
takes more than 3 seconds to load.
• 47% of web users expect a page load of
2 seconds or less.
Source: http://www.guypo.com/17-statistics-to-sell-web-
performance-optimization/
73. What are We Doing about It?
• Thinking about mobile networks … even when designing for
desktop screens.
• Removing low-priority content and design elements.
• Embracing whitespace / negative space.
• Testing on real-world devices.
75. Interactive Timelines
Timelines are back! But don’t
fret – these are not the Flash-
animated, glorified brochures of
previous years.
The new timelines are highly
interactive, driven by real-time
data, and designed for multiple
devices.
80. Gridlock
Aligning elements in a grid is good design
discipline. Card-based, panel-based, grid-based
layouts: they all have enormous advantages, not
least is the ease with which they work on mobile.
But recently we’ve see the emergence of many
designs that are literally breaking the grid in
favor of something more distinctive.