Data Tracker: Marketing is set to get more automated in 2018, says report

The corporate sector needs to understand many avatars of customers to be able to ride the trends in marketing technology in 2018

Marketing in 2018 is set to get more automated and will need to adapt to technological needs and innovation much faster. It is no longer enough to know how a customer behaves online. Customers now have many avatars and a single customer acts in very different ways depending on the channel or platform she uses. The corporate sector needs to understand this phenomenon to be able to ride the trends in marketing technology in 2018. A report, Transformational Martech Trends, by marketing automation agency Netcore Solutions says, “More marketers will embrace an expanded role in 2018—focused not only on customer communications but also on crafting customer experiences that deliver on brand promises everywhere.”

AI power

* AI will help deliver personalised, targeted and appealing messages and offers for customers, select the right marketing channel for the best results and be an anti-fraud partner that can save marketers time and money

Chatbots at work

* The industry is witnessing a massive compounded annual growth rate of 24.3 per cent as more companies and consumers adopt interactive interfaces

* Chatbots, by acting like a virtual pre-sales partner will help optimise presale process operations, improve data collection and enhance buyer experience

Analytics enabled marketing

* Sales engines will be strengthened with data helping them predict and recommend new purchases for customers more efficiently

* Analytics can be leveraged to create a predictive churn model for a data-driven retention strategy and help companies focus on engaging and retaining flight-risk customers

New model of ‘madtech’

* The convergence of marketing and advertising technology will create ‘madtech’ which will help marketers and advertisers increase conversions and reduce ad spend

* It will enable marketers to retarget audiences who have left the brand 

Virtual and augmented reality 

* VR will open up the possibilities for providing customers with engaging experiences, be it a retail store, a salon, travel agency or an automotive brand

* VR ad platforms provide the opportunity to engage with the customers with short ads that play when an app is loading or in between games

* AR products expected to reach $117.4 billion by 2022, expected to transform marketing and advertising channels into interactive platforms that speak to customers and showcase product benefits effectively

* Marketers can optimise events and shows for lead generation and to engage prospects who could become customers, trade shows can allow users to ‘play’ with products and technologies in an optimised setting

Semantic SEO and content marketing

* Marketers now need to optimise their content online to the real intent of users; for this, they first need to understand how their target audience thinks. This is the essence of semantic SEO

* It can be used to predict user intent, optimise content for multiple, logically-related topics and chunk content meaningfully

Source: Transformational martech trends, Netcore Solutions