Marketers are fully expected to take complete control over the customer experience in the future. The Economist Intelligence Unit asked 499 different Chief Marketing Officers and Senior Marketing Executives about their predictions for the evolution of marketing. Also, some Chief Marketing Officers were asked to participate in one on one interviews in order to determine what key technologies and different trends would be cropping up and change the industry going forward over the next 4 years. The results turned out to be very interesting.

In this article, we have come up with a summary of some of the key points the marketers made. However, if you want the full report, you can sign up to download it.

Hottest Tech Trends

The chart below is not at all surprising. After all, mobile is not a new trend. It has been trending up for multiple years and it currently makes up over half of all Internet traffic in general. The internet of things is something that is much newer in the industry and it makes for exciting potential. That being said, it is not yet entirely clear how IoT impacts marketing and marketers. This will definitely have an impact on marketing recruitment agencies though. There are all kinds of different predictions that people have but anyone that tells you they know exactly how IoT will impact marketing is lying through their teeth.

Personalisation technology is something that has been around for quite a while. However, never before have companies had as much data to play with as they do now. Nowadays, a company has a lot of data that they can utilise. CMO’s are beginning to fully grasp the amount of data that they have available and they are really beginning to leverage the amount of information to personalise marketing efforts much more than ever before. Geo-targeting is one of the beginnings of this type of personalised marketing effort. However, advanced marketers are building out full statistical models in order to figure out what different signals mean to individual customers and to market to them appropriately.

One of the major changes that have occurred over the years for marketers has been the emergence of block-chain technology. While it is not entirely clear how this will fully evolve for marketers, there are certain to be major implications with this type of technology. Not only does it have significant implications for both intellectual property and banking, but also the legal field. The way that it can prove to be useful to marketers is not entirely clear.

Artificial Intelligence (A.I) is something that has really gained steam as of late. This is especially true given Google’s own Alpha GO AI was able to beat the world’s Go champion. By combining the advantages that A.I offers with the ability to personalise marketing efforts can really offer some exciting potential for those that are looking to market products and services.

The Key Channels For 2020

When someone mentions the year 2020, it seems like it is quite a ways off. The fact is, it is not that far away at all. It might seem like last year when London held the Olympics. However, that is simply not the case. It is always easy to assume that the future is extremely far away, but the future ends up in the present much quicker than you expect. Without taking notice, you could find your marketing strategies and efforts falling behind. Before you realise, you could be behind your biggest competition.

With that being said, think about this particular chart of what CMO’s think will be the various crucial marketing channels for their respective businesses in 2020. As you can see, social is something that is the clear winner. Whereas, mobile apps and mobile websites place 3rd and 4th in importance. Is this something that reflects your current business model in terms of marketing priorities? You should be investing in the proper channels today to ensure that you are not falling behind your competition.

Measure Your Marketing Efforts

Marketers must be constantly looking to monitor the successes and failures of their marketing campaigns. It is very important to do and not many do it properly. After all, it can be difficult to prove that an increase in sales is due to a new advertising campaign or marketing effort.

By leveraging digital technologies, you will be able to more effectively analyse each and every marketing strategy to ensure that you are calculating the true return on investment for each. This will help you improve traffic and conversion potential.