3 Trends You Should Know About To Survive the Media Meltdown

As an advertising executive, your markets are in a state of massive disruption due to the decrease in content production and the low level accessibility to media channels by both marketers and consumers. As a graduate student from the Medill IMC program, I have found two articles that will provide insights for marketers to stay on top of things.

The first article by Kevin King talks about useful strategies that successful medias adopt today. It summarized 6 key elements for digital trends, including topics on content marketing, influencer marketing and popular transformations such as Blockchain. Also the statement around how mobile is not only shaping our lives but becoming a part of our identity should be deeply considered by marketers as well. In terms of e-commerce, the passage mentioned how this has been changing our lives, once again drawing many insightful predictions for our future digital directions. Here is the link to the article for more details: 6 Digital Trends in 2017 That Will Redefine Influence and Interaction for Marketers 

Source: http://www.stuatkins.com/digital-world/

In the second article, Dave Chaffey shared his holistic views on the ecosystem digital medias have created which circulates through our everyday lives. By linking data charts and graphs with qualitative content, the passage offers a more direct and comprehensive perspective on how media technologies are shaping the marketing trend. The author also provided essentials toolkits that simplify digital marketing down to 8 key techniques which are crucial for businesses to manage their internal affairs. Different techniques may help drive more sales for you that fits multiple dimensioned perspective. Including techniques like AI, IoT, Wearables and more. Here’s the link to the second article: Digital Marketing Trends for 2017     

Based on my review of these two articles and relevant studies I have done at Northwestern University, I have developed three action items that you should incorporate into your business plans. They are:

1. Don’t Adapt, Prepare! -

• Adapting to your environment is the easiest and most comfortable way to fall into traps, marketers should always be aware and prepare for what might come ahead.

2. Strategy Builds Momentum -

• Strategy is what drives a company into action. Without deliberate thinking process, marketers will only be caught off guard if something goes wrong, and with that every hard work will go down the drain.

3. Details Drive Success -

• It is important to be attentive when interacting with the environment around you. All problem solving solutions lies within the subtle mindset.

Stop staring and start grasping bits and pieces of clues around you to prepare for your future marketing agendas.

Alice Liang is currently a graduate student at Northwestern University under the Integrated Marketing Communication program. She will be graduating at the end of 2017 and her specializations are in digital & interactive marketing, brand strategy, customer insights & planning and marketing analytics.  

Contact Info: LinkedIn or Twitter

http://www.marccx.com/category/social-media/

  

Marketing Execs - Don't Let your Messages get Lost in the Digital Noise

As a marketing executive, it is sometimes disheartening to develop great advertisement only to see it lost in the digital noise. Research has shown that online advertising clutter has a negative impact on consumer’s perception of an advertiser’s products and services. As a graduate student in Integrated Marketing Communications program, I have found two articles which address your concerns, you will find what you need to cut through the noise in online advertising and effectively reach your target audience.

Digital advertising has not only become indispensable, but also a major field of competition among marketers' struggle to attract attention and drive revenue. However, digital marketing has been dogged with issues like lack of trust, weak customer engagement and they are easily filtered or ignored, according to Carolina K. Reid in her article, The State of Digital Advertising. Along with the development of information technology, marketers have also developed new ways to engage with consumers online. Native advertising, content marketing and online video are on the hot list of buzzwords for advertisers in the past year. The author looks into the future and concludes that we will see more personal stories by brands, and better forms of native advertising.  

Britt Klontz also emphasizes on the severity of 'the onslaught of content creation for SEO and traffic-increase purposes over the past few years' in her article Standing out from the Clutter: What we can Learn from Traditional Advertising. Marketers today need more than banner ads, infographic, or another interactive visualization to cut through the digital noise and reach other target audience. Marketer's goal should be 'to make sure we’re creating content that stands out, not content that is adding to the clutter'.

Based on the findings from these two articles and my work at Northwestern, here are three action items you need to consider when creating online advertising content: 

1. Personalization 
With a deep understanding of your target customers, marketers should be able to produce different content for different customers according to their online behavior, their needs and motivation. By providing a more personalized experience, marketers will make consumers feel related, and willing to engage. 

2. Creative and Original Content 
Brands should be able to offer unique information to consumers. Instead of marketing a product, try to tell a story, it could be a story between a consumer that benefited from your brand, or a story of how your product is made, or a story of your employee. Instead of aiming to sell, try to provide useful and original information. It could be the 'how-to' articles or tutorial videos. 

3. Utilizing Multimedia

Once you have your content ready, remember to use online, mobile and traditional advertising platforms to maximize exposure to your target audience. Engagement is a two way relationship led by the advertiser. The goal is to reach each and everyone of your target group, and enable people to reach out to you as well. Combine live events with social media, and facilitate interaction through all channels. 

By following the three action items, I believe you will be able to create advertisements that engage your target audience, increase brand awareness, create a mutual beneficial relationship with your customers, and as a result, achieve your sales goals.

Chloe Xu is a graduate student in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Medill, Northwestern University. 

Her passions are digital marketing and marketing analytics. Prior to IMC, she worked as a Marketing and Sales Specialist in an intelligence & consulting firm in automobile industry. Her clients included GM, Ford, Chrysler, Tesla, DS, Honda, VW, Chery, etc.

Contact:
Follow her on Twitter: @chloeIMC
Full resume on LinkedIn: 
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/chloe-jingxian-xu/68/b37/791