No. That won’t be a good, thought-provoking question. Asking how digital marketing will look like by 2023. In the answer, you will get a lot of predictions - all baseless, even if it has some data, they all will be baseless. They won’t add any value to your brain, you won’t even remember it after a day or two.
Instead, let’s focus on the core part. What drives the change? Once we have this core understanding, the possibilities to the main question - how is digital marketing going to change in the next 5 years - are endless. One more important point, this article won’t include a lot of data, graph and references. There is no need. The core purpose of this article is to - make you think, not to stuff your brain with XYZ research of ABC company.
So, which are the core factors?
Marketing without understanding your audience is like winking at a girl in the dark. That won’t work. When you see the current digital marketing trends and strategies, you see a lot of efforts, but the real question is, does it drive any growth? Is it fruitful? Do you really understand your audience? Do you really understand their pain points, their demands, their expectations? Be honest when you answer. If the answer is no, time to reinvest on your audience. Automize your feedback process to make it faster.
5 years later: The digital marketing industry will have a clear understanding of your pain points, your demands, your expectations more than your partner, more than your friends.
Identifying the growth-generating, cost-effective marketing channel is like identifying your passion.
And your reactions here would be like: what? Identifying the marketing channel is like identifying your passion? Are you crazy? It sounds weird! It does not even match!
No, it is not as crazy as it sounds.
If your competitor is getting results from the Facebook, LinkedIn, or paid advertisement, that doesn’t always mean, you will get the result from the same market. Try and test. Test different channels and identify which works best for you, which marketing channel drives more ROI for you.
5 years later: The digital marketing industry will use advanced data analysis techniques like predictive modelling, segmentation, cluster analysis to have a clear understanding of the best channel to connect with their targeted audience.
The third important point is - understanding the user-behavior. You know your audience, you know your best marketing channel, but the core and the most important part is - do you analyze, observe and study all the results-driven out from the first two phases? Do you change your strategy on the basis of data-driven insights or are you still sticking to your main strategy? Are you using modern technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) to understand the user-behavior? If the answer is no, check your strategy again and cross-check it with the data you have analyzed.
5 years later: Using AI, the digital marketing industry will quickly re-plan their whole strategy on the basis of user-behavior.
This is the beginning. You know what drives the changes, what is essential, what is the core. Now, it is easier for you to understand, predict, or guess - how is digital marketing going to change in the next 5 years. What do you think? In your opinion, which is the most important factor? Is it understanding the audience, utilizing modern technologies, user-behavior analysis, or anything else? Comment your views. Let’s make this thread a thought-provoking place for the rest of the readers.
Yuvrajsinh is a Marketing Manager at Space-O Technologies, a firm having expertise in developing iPhone applications. He spends most of his time researching on the mobile app and startup trends. He is a regular contributor to popular publications like Entrepreneur, Yourstory, and Upwork. Apart from that, he connects recruiters to job seekers in India. He has, in fact, helped 18 candidates last month to get a new job.