In 2013, businesses must adapt to emerging technologies by becoming more integrated, inbound and real-time.  Jessica Meher of HubSpot  identifies  some key marketing trends to be prepared for in 2013:

1. “Campaigns” will start to fade, as real-time marketing becomes more relevant.  Marketers need to keep up with changing customer behaviors and rapidly changing technology.  They need to take advantage of the power of real-time communications to grow business vs. relying on campaigns, which are usually not triggered by real time actions or data.  This will mean more inbound marketing and less push marketing.
2. Inbound marketing will grow enterprise-wide.  All departments (sales, HR, finance), not just marketing, will take ownership of some online interaction to promote the company’s brands, products, services, etc.
3. Companies will need to know their customers in more depth by investing in technology that compiles consumer data in a way that is more easily measurable and actionable.
4. Marketing will become more accountable for revenue generation.  Marketing activities will not only be measured on traffic and lead generation, but will further optimize processes that directly impact sales growth.
5. Social media will get integrated.  Integrating social media behavior and data into the rest of the marketing mix and database will become crucial in order to reach customers with relevant messages in real-time.
6. Businesses must adopt mobile or fall behind.  Mobile will become a more strategic and must-have channel for many businesses.  There will be continued investment in mobile-optimized websites and email, as well as more integration with marketing campaigns.
7. Social and content will have a greater impact on SEO.  SEO will become more about creating really good, original content that is socially consumed and shared.  With the overlap between search, social, and content, SEO will focus more on off-page SEO factors.
8. Companies will be hiring more inbound marketing talent.  Companies will be looking for candidates who are not only creative, but who have skills in content creation, lead generation, optimization and data analysis.
9. Big data will get bigger and more digestible.  There will be a rise of startups that are dedicated to making big data more accessible and usable to sales, business development and marketing professionals.
10. Marketers will embrace smart content.  Data-driven personalization, or dynamic content, will allow marketers to serve highly personalized messages to the right audience at the right time.
11. Marketing speak will become more human through social interactions and great content.  Corporations will become less faceless and the trust between companies and consumers will continue to grow.
12. Email will continue to be an important part of the marketing mix.  Marketing emails will become more personalized, relevant and targeted based on real-time data.  This will result in more qualified leads.
13. A top priority will be placed on searching for solutions and best practices for inbound marketing, vs. marketing automation.
14. Marketing technology will continue to evolve.  There will be more investment in technology solutions that solve for inbound marketing, social media management, marketing measurement, attribution and ROI.  Software and services that are integrated and unified with other channels, department and databases will be key.
15. Content curation will be among the top priorities for marketing teams.  There will be an increase in allocating budget to content creation.  We will also see the rise of more curation services and content marketplaces that will help marketers deliver more.
16. Content crowdsourcing will continue to grow.  There will be more opportunities than ever for socially-generated content, where the audience helps build content and contributes to new marketing ideas.  Marketers will continue to build interesting and viral pieces of content with their network of fans and followers.
17. Marketing and gaming will become more converged.  Gamification will help increase the stickiness of content through its entertainment value, reward and learning abilities.
18. Visual imagery and content in the form of infographics, photos, picture boards, video and other forms of rich-media will continue to increase.
19. Marketers will need to leverage context with content.  Marketers will need to gather what they have learned from their leads – the things they do, the things they say, the sites they like, the products they purchase, etc. to have more meaningful relationships and better results with their customers.
20. Budgets spent on outbound marketing (paid media) will lose traction and shift to inbound marketing (earned media and original content).  Budgets will shift in a major way from traditional to digital marketing.

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Category: Tips and Advice
Tags: Marketing