With a new calendar year comes a new shift in the digital marketing landscape. In such a fast moving industry where numerous factors, such as technology innovation and customer data, cultivate change, marketers and business leaders are expected to keep their finger to the pulse of the marketing machine or risk getting left behind.

2016 saw rise to many ground-breaking insights and game-changing ideas. A greater emphasis was placed on customer experience and personalisation in marketing material, and more businesses went mobile in response to data highlighting how their consumers engaged with their brand. Will these trends continue to dominate the digital marketing sphere, or are industry leaders expected to adopt a different approach in 2017? This article aims to explore the predicted trends for the year to come and what they mean for businesses and marketers.

The 4th wave of content marketing is coming – marketing apps

The ‘four waves of content marketing’ is a concept proposed by marketing guru and Program Chair of MarTech, Scott Brinker, that suggests we are currently emerging into a fourth phase, or ‘wave’ of online content marketing.

First wave

To put things in perspective, the first wave began with the inception of information heavy web pages. Businesses would put as much text as they wanted on their site, search engines would absorb all of this information and users would discover the content using the necessary keyword phrases. This lay the foundation of digital content marketing and was heavily reliant on search engine optimisation (SEO).

Second wave

The second wave saw a transition to more visually engaging and richer content, such as infographics, videos, slide presentations, white papers, e-books and animations. While this new breed of content was not optimal for SEO purposes, its visual and interactive nature was often more compelling to its human audience. This wave also corresponded with the rise of social media marketing and the drive to craft content that would be shared on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Third wave

The third wave, currently still on the rise, revolves around personalising content via marketing tools or automated software. The goal of this custom approach is to segment target audiences and demographics to filter the right content for the right consumers. While this custom approach holds great promise and reward, it requires a lot of data to accurately determine which content is right for each consumer.

Fourth wave

Now we finally arrive at the fourth wave of content marketing – the rise of interactive content through responsive marketing apps. Whereas the first three waves all revolved around passive content, marketing apps offer the potential to make users active participants.

A prime example of a successful marketing app is the IKEA catalogue app, which allowed consumers to scan the pages of the IKEA catalogue with their mobile phones to virtually place certain products in your room. The app uses input from the mobile device’s camera and overlays the furniture items to give the user a realistic impression of what they would look like in their home. The app brought in a record 6.2 million installs and was ranked the number one most downloaded marketing app for a brand.

This isn’t to say the other three waves are now obsolete – far from it. When used in harmony, the four waves of content marketing can complement each other for an ultimately more holistic marketing strategy.

Big data still a big contender in 2017

Big data has been a valuable cornerstone in most major marketing campaigns for many years. From providing market and customer insight, to predictive analytics informing channels such as email marketing, every business wants to be able to understand its target market and predict its behaviour. This data is mined in staggering quantities from online interaction, buyer behaviour, social media engagement and using a suite of varying analytic tools – such as Google Analytics.
Tying in with the last trend surrounding marketing apps, businesses will suddenly be in a position to gleam more real-time information from their target market as they engage with the applications. The question remains, however, what will companies do with this ever growing and readily available source of data mined from mobile engagement?

Big data has been defined by the simplified ‘3 Vs’ – volume (amount of data), velocity (growth of data) and variety (types of data). While the existing amount of consumer data is already staggering (sitting around 2.5 zettabytes in 2012), the velocity and variety of data will increase exponentially in 2017 in proportion to the growth of mobile consumer engagement.
The outcome? A shift from retrospective analysis to real time analysis.
2017 promises big analytics and big automation

Ultimately, we will see more businesses utilising consumer data in real-time to assist their automated processes and better understand their target audience’s buyer behaviour patterns. Knowing when to be aggressive with your consumers, when to back off and how to communicate with them will see businesses with a more responsive insight into their markets. We can also expect companies to begin utilising mobile applications in new and innovative ways to engage with their audiences and gleam valuable information about their behaviour.

Digital marketing is data driven and reliant on technology – meaning businesses will invest in both if they expect to stay a step ahead of the competition.

About the author

Paul Finn is the CEO and founder of WebsiteDesign.com.au, helping businesses to create impressive websites for their brand.

Digital marketing trends for 2017 and how business leaders need to respond