digital marketing trends

70% of companies cited having a clear understanding of customer journeys across channels as very important. The disconnect between data and the customer journey is still extremely apparent. In order to fully understand the journey, you must be able to analyze the past across all channels.

Only 38% of marketers see using offline data to optimize the online experience as being very important over the next few years. How do you manage the entire customer journey when you are not measuring and tracking the ENTIRE experience?

Under two-fifths of respondents indicated they have a good infrastructure in place to collect the data they need, while only 38% say they have the analysts they need to make sense of the data. Marketing departments must shift to hire the left-side of the brain instead of the right-side.

32% of marketers are not confident or are neutral in their ability to measure return on investment for digital marketing opportunities. However,80% of marketers agrees that their marketing activity will be more measurable in 2015.

In our online social world, we recognize that all marketers are writers. Everybody writes, and thats true whether you are the Chief Content Officer or Marketing VP or the mar-com manager. Our words are our currency they tell the world who we are, as Beth Dunn points out. They can make us look smart or they can make us look stupid and so being able to communicate well in writing isnt just nice; its necessity.
Are you thinking writing doesnt matter in our video/podcast/Instagram world? Actually, it matters more. Good writing is like an iceberg use your best words to convey depth under the surface. That means youre got to choose those words well, and write with economy and the style and the end reader in mind (theres that empathy thing again!). Thats true whether youre writing a listicle or the words on a Slideshare deck or the opening paragraph Lee wrote at the top of this post

Dont misinterpret this point. Im not saying that Google is not on its way out. After more than a decade of domination, however, it may be on the decline. Up-and-comers like Duck Duck Go arent anywhere near dethroning Google GOOGL -6.11%. What their rise indicates is that consumers want alternatives a choice not to depend on Google if they dont have to.
Marketers should take heed. Google is one basket, but it doesnt deserve all your marketing eggs. Search engine optimization is important, but a searcher can accomplish her goal through more means than just Google. I advise digital marketers to rely less on Google, and engage more direct forms of interacting with their target market.

I wanted to say that mobile dominates, but that line is so utterly cliche, that I had to state it differently. The importance of mobile search, mobile optimization, mobile conversions, and mobile ubiquity cannot be overstated. Mobile devices and our collective addiction to them are fixtures of the modern marketing era.

Enough has been said about the power of social networks. Not quite enough as been said about the importance of social conversions. For ecommerce and lead generation sites, social provides a growing opportunity to improve conversion rates and gain new conversion channels.

With the advent of EVM credit cards (October 2015), the public is in for a new experience when it comes to payment methods. These changes will have a ripple effect on online payment and e-commerce sites.
Privacy issues are a mainstream concern and its up to digital marketers to lead the way in reassuring, educating, and coaching customers through the transition.

Whether you like it or not, youre going to need to pay for advertising spots. I agree with marketers who claim, PPC is dying, but I also see the advent of alternative forms of paid advertising taking its place.
Consider Buzztala for instance. Although they provide organic video ads, they are still ads. And they still cost money. Rising methods of organic/paid advertising are entering into the marketing methods of some brands, signaling a growing trend.