5 Marketing Trends to Leave Behind in 2024
‘Marketing’ spans diverse meanings and mediums and is widely understood as a methodology that involves promoting the value of a product or service.
However, as mediums and media evolve with emerging technologies, general mass audiences are increasingly informed, empowered, and selective about engaging with marketing content.
Consequently, content needs to be highly researched and specifically catered to address the audience’s most burgeoning concerns, which are subject to change depending on seasons, trends, and socio-political strife.
Brands in the prolific digital space must know their audiences better than audiences know themselves if they wish to reflect relatable values - the field of data analytics and SEO-based marketing might as well be filled with psychics, given how unpredictable media trends are.
Although we cannot predict what will fly off the virtual shelves next week, we can offer some insight into marketing tactics that have exhausted their value this year.
Over-reliance on vanity metrics: Instead of focusing on likes and shares, marketers should prioritise metrics directly related to business goals, such as conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and customer lifetime value. Millions of likes may result in temporary internet fame. Still, if audiences cannot take brand-related action after perusing content, then this digital traction would have been for nought.
Based on our research, there are a couple of methods marketers use that will no longer work on today’s sceptical consumers. Today, we’ll share what tactics to leave behind and how to use your platforms more effectively.
- Generic mass emails: Generic, one-size-fits-all email marketing campaigns are no longer as effective as they might have been. Personalisation and segmentation are key to engaging with customers purposefully and assuring them that they are heard and understood.
- Static content: Video used to be a sophisticated media format afforded by a select few with unlimited internet data and high-quality devices. Nowadays, I watch videos on the Internet each week. Videos, when executed optimally, have a higher potential for consumption. Interactive content formats such as quizzes, polls, and augmented reality experiences are becoming more popular with audiences. Marketers should experiment with different interactive content formats to engage users in new and exciting ways.
- Socio-political neutrality: While it is generally good PR practice to maintain objectivity during the ongoing conflict, audiences expect brand accountability and social responsibility, regardless of the stakes. For some brands like Nike, which boldly announced their support of an athlete who protested racial inequality, a risky endeavour that involves picking sides could potentially resonate with consumers, prompting brand loyalty from those on the same side.
- Having a fragmented audience: Diversity and representation is paramount in ensuring that audiences feel included in advertising efforts – Salesforce has reinforced its belief in marketing having the potential to promote messaging that resonates with people of all backgrounds, races, gender identities, ethnicities, ages, religions, abilities, etc. However, the representation of an audience’s demographics is separate from how they think and feel – a brand’s consumer base should have similar value systems that define their decisions and habits. Marketers should, therefore, maximise their knowledge of audience bases to formulate a platform where their customers can interact with each other and freely exchange their thoughts and opinions. This builds a community where consumers can bond over the brand and share valuable insight about necessary improvements.
- Creating without research: Although experimentation is healthy and highly encouraged in creative work, riding on trends to get noticed by mass media cannot ensure longevity. To get audiences genuinely interested in issues a brand addresses, marketers must amass substantial amounts of data that can translate to informed decisions regarding content. Data collection, data cleansing and audience segmentation empower marketers to drive content towards relevant audiences. Brands can track various data during the customer journey, allowing them to customise and shape their strategies to incentivise conversions.
And there you have it – a detailed summary of marketing tactics that might not net you the most consumers and curated suggestions to replace them. If some parts of this article sounded alien, we’d be more than happy to chat about marketing strategies that have worked for us and our clients in the past. Drop us an email at connect@writehaus.asia to kick-start the best in your brand!
