Adobe Insights: Digital Marketing 2014 Plan your digital journey with leading research from Econsultancy and Adobe Rapid turnover in technology, trends and customer habits can make digital marketing strategy feel like a moving target. To keep ahead, which key topics should be on your radar?
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The 2014 Digital Trends Briefing, produced by Econsultancy in partnership with Adobe, highlights the trends, challenges and opportunities marketers need to be on top of. While the full report will give you all the detail, we’ve selected some key insights here to help you navigate the digital landscape this year and beyond.
10 key digital trends for 2014 Fresh from the coal-face of marketing and ecommerce, our global survey, carried out at the end of 2013, gathers detailed responses from more than 2,500 marketers and internet professionals, spanning clients and suppliers, B2B and B2C. We began by asking them which area is most exciting for your organisation or clients in 2014...
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1. Customer experience (CX): the single most exciting opportunity For companies, CX is the number one opportunity this year. Optimal CX depends on harmonising business functions and customer touch points, from customer service and advertising to online user experience, content management and email messaging. Mobile meanwhile – a close second for companies and polling top among agencies – is bridging the physical and digital worlds, for example with location-based targeting, in-store engagement, and wearable technology.
CX – a positive opportunity to make a difference, and also a complex challenge
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2. In the world of B2B, content is king A quarter of B2B-focused marketers view content marketing as the most exciting opportunity in 2014, compared to just 11% of B2C respondents. B2C marketers are significantly more likely to focus on targeting and personalisation and conversion rate optimisation (CRO).
Content lubricates a great deal of marketing automation activity, engaging and nurturing prospects into sales-ready leads
3. A year of experimentation and agility Although the value of test-and-learn is widely appreciated, almost two-thirds of company respondents have a strong appetite for digital experimentation – one of the key tenets of agile marketing. While fear of failure holds many companies back, it’s encouraging that more than half disagree that their digital plans for 2014 will be ‘more of the same’.
Where do you stand on digital and traditional marketing? Arguably, a distinction isn’t essential: it’s the customer experience that matters.
4. Consumer expectations outpace corporate innovations From Facebook to iPhones, much has changed in the past decade. We asked respondents to comment on the key differences in today’s customer. 1 Control moves from marketing to the market 2 We don’t know how social is going to evolve 3 Marketing departments will be pressed to evolve as fast as their consumers
1 “...It’s now a battle for brands to provide a continuous flow of ever-engaging content...”
Separate online/ offline
Fully integrated
Separate online/ 2 offline
Fully integrated
“People are curating their feeds more and it’s becoming harder to be seen as a business... ”
All marketing is digital
All marketing 3 is digital
“The hyper-connected generation and all its baggage is fast on the horizon.”