Combining creativity with the ability to measure results is key in an industry struggling to keep up with the advances in technology, writes Alexander Rauser
Did you land here because you want to know what the future of digital is, how it will transform the world, and what is the next big thing in digital? Many great minds on the pages before and after have answered the question, but let me try and summarise the digital landscape in 2015 real quick and if you stay with me until the end you’ll find a golden nugget of digital for 2016. Promise.
Okay, let’s go.
BIG DATA
Big data was a buzzword on everyone’s mind in 2015. Companies of all sizes started to work with consultants to hoard and collect all sorts of data they could find on their customers, and for most that’s where the story ended. Data was saved and kept aside, but most companies could not figure out what to do with all of it or what data was most important in relation to their goals and key performance indicators as a company. There are many data synthesising tools and reporting tools emerging that are attempting to organise big data but many still lack the depth and personalisation required to glean any valuable insight. Additionally, tools struggle to pull data from the application programming interfaces of several different channels, making the process manual for those playing in several places. Refining these tools will be a key feature in the future of digital.
MILLENNIALS
First it was ‘Generation X’, then there were the millennials. They are transforming the way businesses should think when it comes to digital. Millennials expect many things from the brands they love. They want to engage with brands far more on both a personal and emotional level and engage in a two-way relationship, not the traditional one-way. Millennials are also willing to share much more information with companies such as their location, what and where they eat everyday, and so on. They are happy to share this information because they understand that brands can use the data creatively and target them with new products or services associated with their tastes and unique personalities. If companies have not already begun to market to millennials, then now is the time to master the art of the two-way reciprocal relationship. But watch out, the millennial segment is so large that it can also lead to generalising and one-fits-all marketing solutions, which may not resonate well at all.
IOT/WEARABLE TECH
The Internet of Things (IoTs) are gadgets and gizmos that gather, store and analyse data. IoTs are all smart: smart cars, smart smoke detectors, heart monitors, wind turbines, tennis rackets and more. International research firm Gartner has estimated that by 2020 there will be 25 billion devices transmitting small amounts of data to the cloud for brands and businesses to use to their advantage. These intelligent machines are transforming industries such as healthcare, transportation and city planning. As these industries embrace this digital shift, there will be plenty of room for growth. According to a report produced by PwC, worldwide mobile health revenue will be $23 billion by 2017. The challenge with this new technology, especially for agencies, is the need to transform their skill set 360 degrees and become tech savvy and not from a software, but from a hardware, perspective.
HYPERLOCAL
Matt Lawson, Think With Google’s director of search ads marketing, says: “We want things right and we want things right away. As a result, the consumer journey looks markedly different than it did just five years ago. Instead of a few moments of truth, it’s a series of micro-moments when we turn to mobile to act on a need.”
It has taken some time to reach this point, but customers expect you to be able to reach them on a hyperlocal level now and this is a strategy you should rise to. ‘Near me’, ‘closest’ and ‘nearby’ search terms are driving millions of searches a month, proving that consumers are making purchase decisions on the go. This localisation spells a huge opportunity for both local and global businesses to attract this somewhat neglected audience. The audience is there, waiting for you to start the conversation, but this is the main challenge for modern marketers to understand that hyperlocal marketing has nothing to do with pushing advertising messages to users’ phones. It’s about creating customer engaging programmes and building a strong, relevant relationship through modern ways of communication.
MOBILE FIRST
Please tell me you haven’t missed the memo about how important it is to have a mobile first experience for your consumers. There are more than 1.2 billion mobile web users worldwide and the number of mobile web users that only use their mobiles to access the web is growing and growing. With this in mind, it is vital that you design for mobile by developing a responsive website and/or app to provide a seamless mobile service for your consumers. Brands falling behind from the mobile-first landscape are losing trust with consumers looking for this type of experience. That being said, desktop still plays an important role in a consumer’s journey with your brand. Catering to the multiple touch points in your user journey will facilitate a higher conversion rate and a stronger relationship with your customers.
CONTENT IS KING/ CREATING SNACK-ABLE CONTENT
Content marketing is a great way to engage your consumers and provide them with the information they need to aid them at any point in their user journey with your brand. As there is more content out there competing for limited attention spans, content marketers need to create bite-sized pieces of content that are easily consumed and shared by their respective target audience(s). Especially for millennials (and their subcultures), mobile, social media or local marketing messaging; creating the right content at the right time becomes more important than ever. But by no means does this mean to flood the internet and your social feeds with meaningless little posts, memes and content devoid of any common sense. In-depth content pieces such as lists, infographics, white papers and research, will remain to take up a hearty fraction of your content strategy as this can be distilled into bite-sized nuggets of information like social media posts and graphics to be shared across many channels.
AD-BLOCKING
Ad blocking has been around for years but the adoption of ad-blockers is on the rise, threatening the economic structure of the web. There are two opposing opinions surrounding ad-blocking; one, that valuable, well-researched or entertaining content doesn’t come for free. And the second, that consumers have to withstand a constant barrage of ads. What is in the future for ad-blockers? Arguably, ad-blockers could force advertisers to produce simpler, less aggressive advertisements and the increasing popularity of these tools makes it clear what consumers really want: less ads.
DEEP LINKING
Simply put, deep links are any links that direct users past the homepage of a website or app to content beyond. It has been one of the hottest topics this year in mobile as businesses are using and improving their use of deep links. While the topic has been around for over a decade and seems rather mundane, it has gained the interest of many marketers who want to improve the discoverability of their products and services online. Especially with platforms such as Facebook enabling advertisers to deep link into their apps, content brands can increase conversion rates ten fold and, therefore, 2015 was big bucks for deep links.
OMNI-CHANNEL
Omni-channel everything. You must have usually heard this being mentioned where multiple channels work together to offer an integrated user experience. Each channel is aligned on messaging, goals and design. Omni-channel for most brands is still in a primary development stage and has a long way to go. However, omni-channel is accessible for most brands and offers an opportunity for them to give consumers a similar journey no matter where they are or what device they are using. The key challenge many brands face is to bring all systems to the same technological level to allow for such omni-channel experiences. A company is only as good as its weakest link in this case.
But enough buzzwords. One thing is clear: digital is getting more exciting every year, but also more complex. Brands, agencies and consumers need to constantly adapt to the advances in technology. While consumers and brands demand the latest in technology to be used for their entertainment or to their advantage, agencies have to catch up and learn new technologies as and when they surface. For some it is a burden and for some it is a joy. But everything we do, whether it’s deep linking, hyperlocal marketing, snacking on content or mingling with millennials, it all goes down to two important points; the creativity we put into our executions and the abilities we develop to measure our success. Sadly, both are in a decline while the industry is struggling to keep up with the advances in technology.
As an agency, we need to become bolder when it comes to creativity and we need to avoid the slippery slope of repetitive production and delivery. Digital channels are built not around the type of content itself but the quality and the creativity we put into content. And that is what will make a difference. But it doesn’t end here, we also need to become experts in data and measuring our results. Combining our creativity with the ability to measure our results will give us and our clients the proof that what we are doing works.
Creativity and insight is what matters in today’s digital age, everything else is just buzzwords.
And if all this fails why don’t you just go and take a selfie.
Alexander Rauser is the CEO of Prototype Interactive
