The Seven Trends That Will Shape Consumer Marketing In 2018

In this festive guest piece, the co-founder and managing director of Seven Communications, Patrice Pandeleos (pictured below), shares her top consumer marketing trends for 2018…

1. Customer experience will form the heart of consumer planning

Brands and agencies will rush to find new ways to put their customer experience at the heart of what they do.

Using data to map out customer journeys and user experiences will lead to better planning and help create more personalised content. This change will mean a significant increase in the amount of content brands need to create.  In turn, the storytellers amongst us will be busier than ever.

2. Customer lifetime value (CLTV) will be the #1 success metric

A fragmenting media landscape, the rise of social media and technology have created an attention deficit world. As a result, it’s harder than ever to run a marketing campaign and understand the clear ROI by channel in a short period of time.

To truly understand ROI, marketers will have to embrace longer-term customer lifetime value (CLTV) to truly understand their success.  Overtime this will mean marketers will be able to understand which audiences have the most long-term value.

3. Influencer marketing will take a significant slice of traditional media budgets

With some influencer audiences rivaling prime-time television viewership figures and dwarfing print circulation, it makes commercial sense for brands to use influencer marketing to reach consumers.

Investing $10,000 to have a relevant influencer become an advocate for your brand is a far more attractive proposition to spending up to five times that on one national prime-time 30-second TV spot. From a PR perspective, influencers offer another trusted third party to tell your brand’s story.

4. Voice activated back-ends become a focus for marketers

Long gone are the days of searching a directory to find the coolest bars to go to or calling a mate to ask for travel tips and advice.

Whether you prefer Siri, Alexa, Cortana or Google, voice-activated back-ends are getting smarter at understanding user behaviour and intent.

This means marketers have a greater opportunity to use voice search and over time, use this tool to create cost-effective and responsive campaigns with endless possibilities.

5. Brands and social networks will fight back against fake news:

This year was the year of ‘fake news’ and 2018 will be the year that brands and social media fight back. The public and private sectors are placing greater scrutiny on the major players to monitor content and its authenticity.

Trust has always been an important factor when brands decide to spend money with media.  Next year, we will see greater pressure than ever before to consider the negative impact on a brand’s reputation when aligned with untrusted media platforms.

6. Better use of AI powered Chatbots

Have you noticed lately that every brand wants to have a conversation with you? Not just on a brand’s website, but also on their social media pages.

Whether it’s giving advice, helping you with a query or encouraging you make a purchase, it’s likely you’re having a conversation with a smarter-than-ever AI-powered chatbot.

The rapid advancements in AI mean 2018 will see many brands seek new ways to improve the way they use this technology to help respond to customers faster than ever and convert sales.

7. The transition of Millennials to Gen Z

Brands targeting a younger audience need to turn their focus to Gen Z and stop talking about the now older demographic of millennials.

Gen Z have grown up with social media. They use Instagram and Snapchat more than Facebook and they’re comfortable using five screens at once compared to Millennials who use two.

Their attention span is shorter than that of Millennials and they aren’t loyal to any platform.  Gen Zs are tech-native, as opposed to millennials who are tech-savvy, and they prefer messenger and apps to email and Snapchat and Instagram to Facebook.

Gen Zs have grown up in an uncertain world – with terrorism, political and economic unrest and seeing millennials struggle to gain employment and buy a house. All of this has made them more cautious with their money and more pragmatic in their approach.