Having spent much of this week trying to digest the myriad predictions of hot new marketing trends for 2014, I thought I’d save everyone else some time and compile my own list of the most interesting ones.
What’s hot on the hot list for 2014
- Mobile is everything. An Econsultancy blog declares that marketers must have a “mobile first” approach in 2014. This is based on US statistics, but the UK won’t be far behind. The blog predicts that this is the year that smartphone usage will be the most popular device for online activity. The take-away from this? User experience (UX) is everything. If your site isn’t mobile friendly, now is the time to sort it. View website design services.
- Video content is evolving, and borrowed formats are set to become more prominent. By borrowed formats we are talking about using established formats from TV shows in our content marketing, such as the hidden camera show (remember THAT Carrie trailer from last year?), or for short form video such as Vine and Instagram, the “top tips” structure works well. What’s next? Could a “Faking it” format provide engaging brand content? A cooking contest? The possibilities are endless! View content creation services.
- Wearables. These have been bubbling away for the last few years now and the buzz looks set to continue into 2014. Watch out for the Apple i-Watch coming to market this year (probably), and the continued testing of the Google Glass headset. There are already a couple of products on the market (see semi-successful Samsung Galaxy Gear and Pebble) and our appetites for smart mobile devices show no signs of abating. The impact that this will have on the marketing world? An increase in location based apps and offers going into 2015, maybe? And finally…
- People don’t like waiting in 2014. This theme popped up again and again, whether the subject was mail-order delivery options, web page loading times, or good old fashioned customer service. The delivery bit? This refers to the new options that are emerging when you buy from an online retailer. We want our stuff now, or at least today, even tomorrow at a stretch, and retailers are addressing this by offering in-hour delivery, local 24 hour collection points through garages and convenience stores, or even secure lock-ups that you access with a unique pin code. For web pages, developers used to talk about the “7 second rule”, but now it is more like 2 seconds. Is a logo really that special that we need to watch it slowly unfurl before our very eyes, pixel by pixel? Probably not. And customer service? If you have a social media feed that invites your customers to talk to you, be prepared to deal with the bad as well as the good, and a speedy response goes a long way.
