Change seems to be the one constant in the marketing world these days. Every time you turn around there’s a new social media tool. Of course marketers want to know where things are headed for the future. But businesses are sometimes a little hesitant to embrace new trends, because they’re not sure if the trends will really help them—or if they’ll be outdated within a few months.
So what’s in store for this year? The folks at business2community.com have identified 14 brand trends for the coming year. And while we don’t necessarily agree with all of them, we thought some of them were worth some serious consideration.
- Just Being Known Isn’t Enough: You may be known, but you need to be known for something meaningful and important to consumers. Your brand is no longer just what you say it is. It’s what your customers say it is. What are you known for?
- Engaging Emotions: Smart marketers will appeal to emotions rather than simply focus on functionality or pure reason. To be honest, this isn’t really a new trend. It’s something savvy marketers have done for years.
- Defining Brand “Engagement”: Successful marketers will link “engagement” to how efforts increase how well the brand is perceived and a metric that correlates highly with loyalty, sales, profitability and lifetime value.
- Mobile Optimized: In 2011, Brand Keys trends said mobile would move mainstream. It did. In 2014, brands will need strategies and delivery mechanisms and content that matches consumer multi-tasking and multi-screen behavior.
- Integration Intensification: Multi-platform traditional and digital models will need to be integrated in all marketing efforts. Again, this isn’t really a new trend. We’ve talked about it before, but it’s more important than ever that marketing efforts work together—and drive customers back to the Web.
