The Future of Marketing

Marketing as an industry continues to develop and innovate faster than ever. With entrepreneurship becoming the career path of choice for many people, establishing your brand and growing your startup can be incredibly competitive.

This, combined with the ever-increasing sophistication of marketing tools, means if you’re not moving forwards – you’re regressing.

Having spent a lot of time reviewing my clients’ activities over Q1 of 2021, I’ve noticed some patterns and skills that are increasingly important. Here are my recommendations for growth marketers as we head to halfway 2021. 

Focus on the human

The fundamentals will always remain the same. Understanding who your customers are, the problems you solve for them, and how to effectively communicate –these should be the core questions of every brand.

As I always tell clients and mentees – the better you understand your customer, the more effective your marketing will be. No exceptions.

Less data, more creativity

With the introduction of GDPR and Apple’s IDFA tracking, we’ll have less access to individual user data. This has a short term negative impact in that it reduces clarity. But as an optimist, I believe that this will enable us to think more creatively about how to learn about our users. Perhaps even by talking to them. Shocking.

Additionally, there’s increasing awareness among the general public about how we collect and use data. Marketers often have a bad habit of assuming everyone else is naive, which is valid to an extent, but only because we spend hours each day learning about it. 

One insight I see is being more transparent about what data we collect and how we use it, not just to comply with GDPR but also to treat our customers as humans.

AI & ML

The speed at which we’re incorporating AI and Machine Learning into our customer acquisition processes, from advert optimisation to attribution modelling, has a significant bearing. We have to be aware that machines can calculate millions of variables to target more precisely than humans can ever process.

Soon, we’ll supply the copy and creative and let the tools do everything else. I see this with Google’s UAC / App Ads and in how most of my FB campaigns perform best when I don’t specify an audience.

Experimentation

Startups, more than anyone, need to learn to embrace experimentation. Even with nearly all the data in the world, we still can’t predict people’s behaviour 100% of the time and, as such, we can merely perform educated guesses. We need to apply a scientific and rapid approach to testing our ideas to see what happens firsthand.

Be Brave

Marketing can be scary. You’re the person who has to represent the brand, and you put yourself on the line when things go wrong. It’s important to have courage in an ever-competitive marketplace, to take risks and try something that feels uncomfortable.

Do you agree, or disagree? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you and get your thoughts!

I hope you find some use in my ramblings and would love to learn more about what you see as the future of marketing for you