Ryan Prentice - Online Marketing Consultant

Top 5 Marketing Predictions 2011

It’s now well into the new year and what better time to start predicting the top 5 marketing trends and predictions for the rest of 2011. Believe me, there’s a whole lot more than 5 with things, as always, moving at a fast rate of noughts – especially in the online marketing world.

With higher rates of inflation, the increase of VAT, even steeper fuel prices and much, much more, in 2011 consumers will see their money not stretch as far as it used to. This will have a knock on effect on what marketing messages consumers respond positively to and price and value will be a key area. This doesn’t necessarily mean the cheaper the better but brands and retailers will be keen to communicate good value in 2011. We’ve already seen a number of advertising messages over the past couple of weeks offering to ‘beat the VAT rise’ and keep prices at the previous rate. Expect a lot more where this came from as well as more upmarket retailers such as John Lewis continuing to promote their ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ value propositions.

2. Social and mCommerce Will Become More Prominent

As the uptake of smart phones and social networking continues to grow exponentially, expect to see both of these provide new ways for us to consume products.

mCommerce (basically ecommerce on mobile devices) has been a bit of a slow starter but as the technology continues to develop expect to see the purchasing of products on your smart phone increasingly commonplace.

Social networking has proven a great way for brands to engage with their customers and in 2011 you can expect this to go even further with the possibility of purchasing products directly from Facebook. If someone in your network purchases a product then they can choose to share this on their wall – providing an extremely powerful referral effect. This provides an exciting prospect for businesses to turn their social media presence into tangible product sales.

In 2011 brands both large and small will have a great opportunity to use these two new technologies to their advantage. As a result the importance of having a multi-platform ecommerce business will increase tenfold.

3. Smaller Groups and Smaller Networks are the Way Forward

Since it is, without doubt, the most important marketing trend at the moment, let’s stay on social networking.

Although social networking platforms such as Facebook continue to grow and grow their user base, consumers will begin to split their networks into smaller groups or use a selection of new, niche social networking platforms to engage with different groups they’re involved with.

Something that has been identified as more people use social networking is that individuals don’t want to share the same information with everyone in their network. Whether they are a work connection, someone from their football team, a school friend or a family member, individuals want to communicate with each of these groups differently – not in a holistic manner.

Facebook has already brought out the new Groups feature in 2010 (see more here) and in 2011 we will see this adopted more widely as well as other new methods of segmenting a users audience.

The brands that follow this closely, understand the implications and act on them accordingly will perform best in social media in 2011.

4. Online Search Will Change (Nothing New There Then!)

Online search is continually changing and when it comes to optimising websites for search engines this means the goal posts are always moving. This can’t be avoided though – Google need to continue to innovate and provide us with the most relevant search results. Get ready for more changes to the way in which we use search engine optimisation in 2011

In 2011 it is not clear exactly what is coming but here are some definites:

Local Searching

Google will begin to show users search results from their local area more prominently – even if the user is not specifically searching locally. To me this is a bad move in many ways. Ok, you may be searching for a dry cleaner and one in the local area would definitely be of benefit but what if you run an ecommerce business selling products across the UK – is locality really a major factor in that case?

Google Instant

Google Instant came out in late 2010 and the jury is still out in terms of how it affects searching behaviour. Look out for the first signs of this kind of research coming out within the next couple of months because it will have an effect on how your business should successfully optimise your site.

Social Search

Yep sorry I’m harping on about social networking again! Google have already began to index tweets in their search results and, at the same time, Facebook will definitely become more geared towards searching for products and services within the ‘social sphere’.

Whether it is Google, Facebook or others who pioneer this, search results will eventually take into account sites that those in your social network have also searched for. As always, companies keeping abreast of these trends and what they mean for their marketing strategy will perform best in 2011.

5. Will TV Advertising Make a Comeback?

Lets face it; TV advertising is nowhere near as powerful as it used to be. With technology such as Sky+, the fragmentation of television audiences and, of course, the advent of the Internet and consumption of online media, television advertising just doesn’t have the same mass audience any more.

As a format though, the 30-second TV ad will actually grow in popularity. With online streaming, digital TV streaming and the new advertising model for sites such as YouTube, there is now once again space for the traditional TV advertising format. In addition to this, the technology available today means that the production of a 30 second advert is now much more cost-effective for small and large businesses alike. Could this be the ‘bringing back to life’ of the TV ad?

Anyway that’s it – now lets wait and see if I’m right!

Article Tags: Social Networking, Search Results

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