Lee HawksleyManaging Director, AustraliaExactTarget

Predicting the future is by and large a wonderfully futile endeavor. Were it not, gambing centres around the world would have to close up shop overnight as we all became perfect prognosticators of every rugby, AFL and soccer score.

This is not to say, however, that predictions are without value. The mere act of contemplating the future removes our day-to-day blinders and helps us contemplate how the events of the past and present may shape what’s yet to come. For Australian marketers, this is a priceless exercise as we live in a state of constant change—often afraid to look anywhere but forward for fear that we’ll fall behind our peers and the technology that seemingly drives our every move today.

And that’s exactly why we ask you to stop and read this collection of predictions from ExactTarget clients, partners, employees, and friends. Collectively, they have hundreds of years of experience as marketers. They understand brand, audience, technology, data, automation, measurement, and the landscape - across Australasia and abroad. And while they don’t share some magical crystal ball that lets them predit the future,

they do share a passion for marketing’s past, present, and future that lets them spot trends—many of which will be very relevant to your brand in 2013.

So dig in—think, question, and challenge the predictions you find within these pages. Do they align with what you’re seeing within your market? Is there a big trend coming that you nee to prepare for today?

The value of these predictions lies not in their accuracy at some future date, but in the questions they inspire today. We hope you find them as thought-provoking as we do.

To an inspired future,

2

Looking for More Predictions in 2013?

Visit blog.exacttarget.com for additional insights from our

ExactTarget community of clients, partners, employees, and industry

thought-leaders.

Section I: CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING 5

Introduction 2

Section II: EMAIL 10

Section III: MOBILE 14

Table of Contents

Matt Fleckenstein, Microsoft 6 Jay Baer, Convince & Convert 7Christopher Parkin, Adobe 8Ashraf Montaser, Adfinity 9

Bryan Wade, ExactTarget 11Matt Blumberg, Return Path 12Kristina Huffman, ExactTarget 13

Brent Hieggelke, Urban Airship 15R. J. Talyor, ExactTarget 16

Section IV: SOCIAL 17

Section V: MARKETING AUTOMATION 22

Section VI: NEW & EMERGING TRENDS 25

Table of Contents

Susan Marshall, ExactTarget 18Marcus Nelson, Addvocate 19Jeff Bullas, Blogger, Author, Speaker and CEO 20Iggy Pintado & Chris Baumann, Author & Lecturer 21

Stephanie Miller, DMA 23Mathew Sweezey, Pardot 24

Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute 26Christopher Krohn, Restaurant.com 27

5

CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING

Inspired Predictions for CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING 6

Big Data Breakthroughs

Big Data seems to be the “big thing” right now. International Data Corporation (IDC) recently released a worldwide Big Data technology and services forecast showing the market is expected to grow from $3.2 billion in 2010 to $16.9 billion in 2015. There’s no denying that companies across the globe in nearly all industries are investing heavily in big data solutions to drive their business in new and interesting ways.

While big data continues to grow in popularity, it seems that the majority of use cases center around improved business and customer intelligence. Respondents in Forrester Research’s June 2011 Global Big Data Online Survey reported that the majority of companies (55%) are leveraging big data for business intelligence and analytics, while nearly three out of 10 (28%) were using big data for ERP or CRM purposes.

While progress is being made in leveraging big data for CRM (see ING Direct and Target), it is becoming increasingly clear that in today’s digital world, traditional CRM approaches fall short. As Forrester analyst Rob Brosnan writes, “Traditional

campaign approaches can’t keep up with pervasively addressable customers who engage well before and after the point of purchase.” More than ever, customers create their own paths across channels and touchpoints, bobbing and weaving as they discover, research, buy, and evangelize products and services. Existing CRM solutions can’t keep up.

I predict that in 2013, we will see big data solutions extend beyond traditional CRM, and a new category of real-time, cross-channel digital marketing automation will emerge. For the first time, customers’ online transactions, responses to (or non-responses to) digital marketing efforts, and product/service usage behaviors will stream in real time into advanced, data-driven marketing automation platforms that sit atop big data solutions.

As in the past, digital marketers will leverage their marketing knowledge and business/customer intelligence to create a series of interactions that cut across the customer journey to determine which message to serve to a customer. But once a campaign or CRM program is launched, real-time marketing automation solutions will take over, leveraging rules-based personalization and adaptive algorithms/machine learning to modify and optimize messages to individual users based upon current and past marketing performance. More than ever, marketing automation tools that are adaptive and flexible enough to keep up with and respond to customer interactions are critical, given the amount (and changing nature) of customer data we now have available and the fact that no two customers follow the same customer journey.

In the past decade, we’ve seen automated, algorithmic platforms revolutionize how we buy/sell/trade stocks. (In 2010, it was projected that as much as 60% of all orders on the New York Stock Exchange were fulfilled by automated trading tools.) In 2013, we will see real-time, cross-channel marketing automation tools emerge and begin a similar revolution for driving CRM across the customer journey.

Matt FleckensteinDirector of Product IntelligenceMicrosoft Office and Office 365

Microsoftwww.microsoft.com

@MatFlec

Inspired Predictions for CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING7

Youtility is marketing that’s so useful, people would pay for it. If brands do that— if they make their marketing inherently, truly, astoundingly useful—their customers will do their marketing for them. They’ll sell more by selling less.

That’s my prediction for 2013. Brands will focus on making their marketing indispensable.

Viral Breathes Its Last

2013 will be the death of “viral” as a marketing strategy. Despite the success of Old Spice, Honey Badger, Gangnam Style, and other outliers, brands will recognize that swinging for the fences breeds strikeouts and is wholly unpredictable and unreliable.

In 2013, brands will eschew the strategy of hope and embrace a new strategy of help—and in doing so, will usher in a new era that diminishes promotion in favor of information.

According to research conducted by Google, in 2010, consumers needed 5.3 sources of information before making a purchase. In 2011, just one year later, they needed 10.4 sources. In just 12 months, the amount of information needed to pull the “buying trigger” doubled. Why? Are we less decisive? More risk adverse? No. We need more information because we have more information. From blogs to podcasts to review websites to Facebook and beyond, prospective customers are floating in a sea of data, and brands will begin to aggressively wage this war of information in 2013.

Simultaneous shifts in how, why, and how much information customers consume have fundamentally altered the success formula for modern business. Brands can’t survive by shouting the loudest and relying solely on anachronistic, interruption-marketing, or even wacky videos that they pray will go viral. They can’t send an email every day, proclaiming that they’re featuring the “biggest sale ever!” They can’t simply rewrite a portion of the online brochure and hope that Google funnels customers to the website.

Customers are more curious and more suspicious than ever. The only way to succeed in that environment is to tilt the marketing objective from selling to helping.

If you sell something, you make a customer today. If you help someone, you may create a customer for life. Brands will take cues from Hilton Hotels, McDonald’s Canada, Clorox, Columbia Sportswear, and many, many others that have realized the key to success is to stop being a salesman and start becoming a “Youtility.”

Jay BaerPresidentConvince & Convertwww.convinceandconvert.com@JayBaer

Customers are more curious and more suspicious than ever. The only way to succeed in that environment is to tilt the marketing objective from selling to helping.

Inspired Predictions for CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING8

The Millisecond Opportunity

Marketing leaders will accelerate innovation in 2013 to make sense of all of these signals and content to deliver meaningful engagement. And they will do it in milliseconds.

The explosion in data and content while a challenge to marketers, is leading to innovation.

We are rapidly moving into a post-PC world of unprecedented mobility, social connectedness, and content creation. The types, power, and connectivity of the devices we use is creating an increasing number of signals that each of us broadcasts—our likes, interests, posts, traffic patterns, etc. These signals aren’t random acts and facts—they are self-defining choices with meaning.

Powerful devices and social connectedness have also made it much easier for businesses and consumers to create and distribute quality content.

Marketing leaders will accelerate innovation in 2013 to make sense of all of these signals and content to deliver meaningful engagement. And they will do it in milliseconds. By “meaningful engagement,” I mean delivering content and experience that is so timely, relevant, and personal that it adds value to our customers’ lives. This isn’t a new concept, but we are just now gaining access to the technology needed to deliver on the promise of personalization.

To address the last millisecond opportunity, marketing leaders are re-platforming with new systems that help them:

• Sort through customer actions to find the meaningful signals that help them understand what they’re doing right now, where they are, and what device they are using

• Marry those signals with what is known about the customer from all available sources of data (CRM, social, etc.) to create a more holistic view

• Use this view to predict the most appropriate content to deliver

• Automatically assemble and deliver the appropriate content experience regardless of channel or device

• Accomplish it all within milliseconds

Consumers have started to experience some really positive engagement experiences and are thus increasingly demanding it as part of their relationship with brands. Marketing leaders will innovate in 2013 with newly available technology platforms and tools to deliver on this customer expectation.

Christopher Parkin Strategic Alliances & Adobe GenesisAdobe Systemswww.adobe.com@CParkin70

Inspired Predictions for CROSS-CHANNEL MARKETING 9

True Cross-Channel Marketing Arrives

We can start doing what marketers everywhere are trying to do— send each user a tailored message in the right environment at the right time.

How many times have you heard the term “cross-channel” bandied about? As a marketer, the answer is probably more times than your average political candidate has been pictured kissing babies—constantly.

What is usually meant is that you can do web and social and email and offline and mobile separately. Or, you can do it just as ineffectually as you aggregate these bits of data and try to reach them through a single channel. Either way, it’s not great.

No more. The user will be a single user and each channel will have context of the user’s state at that moment in time. The technology has been around for awhile and now “big data” has moved from a buzzword to business-as-usual. We can start doing what marketers everywhere (no matter the channel) are trying to do—send each user a tailored message in the right environment at the right time, otherwise known as one-to-one marketing in many channels.

Real-time recommendation engines are a simple example of this. Used in a checkout lane and integrated into email receipts, they’ve been around for some time. Display ads use behavioral targeting in the same way to target messages. The proliferation of offline and online profiling through social media sites and loyalty schemes, cheap computing power, and company acquisition/consolidation is all happening. The only thing missing is the elastic bands to tie them together and a multi-disciplined approach by marketers. Target was a case study in profiling and targeting (forgive the pun) a few years ago, and now these tools are cheaply available to all.

The final technology piece is real acquisition modeling, which can account for the myriad of data noise in all channels. Marketers can move to building campaigns and messages around context and real time profiling and data enrichment rather than medium.

So the best advice is to go back to Marketing 101:

• Keep it simple.

• Focus on target and message, not medium.

• Make the experience spookily personal—not creepy.Ashraf MontaserCo-Founder & Director

AdInfinitywww.adinfinity.com.au

@AdInfinityAU

10

EMAIL

Inspired Predictions for EMAIL11

The Year of the First Impression

Bryan WadeVice President, Email ProductsExactTargetwww.exacttarget.com @Bryan_Wade

When it comes to email, 2013 will be all about making that first impression of the email count, reaching your readers wherever they are, and making sure your message gets read. The changing landscape for where and how emails are being viewed opens the door for new innovations in email. Three things in particular will impact email marketing in 2013:

1. Mobile will become the platform of choice for email.

Handheld devices will overtake the PC screen as the place where consumers read emails first, making mobile rendering the most pressing issue email marketers face. Marketers must adapt—literally—with adaptive HTML design using responsive designs. The @Media rules built into HTML to detect handheld devices versus C screens will make their way into the mainstream email design standards. New technologies are making links device-aware (thus allowing marketers to redirect to a mobile app instead of the web), causing link redirects to be smarter and more mobile-aware.

2. Inbox organizers will change subscribers’ view of email.

Marketed to consumers as time savers and productivity tools, inbox organizers will become increasingly popular in 2013 as consumers realize their benefit for organizing

and managing the inbox. Both ISP based-organizers (e.g., Gmail and Yahoo!) and client-based organizers (e.g., Outlook) automatically organize and display content based on rules set up by the consumer—essentially changing the way consumers view emails in their inbox. This technology could be a game-changer in the way marketers think about inbox preview and rendering.

3. Testing will become the new send wizard.

In 2013, marketers will increasingly allow data to drive their email strategy through the use of testing. Marketers will devote more time to testing subject lines, images, content areas, or even entire email layouts to see what drives a higher ROI. Sophisticated marketers will not only test the emails themselves, but they will also test which data segments perform best. Testing tools are so easy to use that every email send will become a test—and today’s winner will become the baseline for tomorrow’s test. Marketers will gain greater insight into winning subject lines, content, and layouts—including important information about seasonality or how a campaign may lose effectiveness over time.

The changing landscape for where and how emails are being viewed opens the door for new innovations in email.

Inspired Predictions for EMAIL 12

Consumers Will Fall in Love with Email (Again)

In 2013, consumers will start discovering what industry insiders are already seeing—email is cool again. For the record, it’s always been cool. But it’s been a long time since so many new ideas about email came to light. This burst of new development offers a glimpse into the inbox of the future, and for smart marketers, it’s an opportunity.

First and foremost, the inbox of the future is a command center. It’s where users manage social data, schedules, and even other communication channels. Think of how Rapportive displays contacts’ social media information in a Gmail sidebar; or how Google Voice via Google Talk lets Gmail users make phone calls from their inboxes; or how TripIt uses flight confirmation emails to build and manage travel itineraries. Then there are task managers like MailPilot and ActiveInbox that turn email into a to-do list. All of this happens in the inbox, and as users embrace and spur more innovation like this, email will increasingly centralize an array of online and offline experiences.

The inbox of the future also manages email more actively. It automates sorting and prioritizes messages with solutions like OtherInbox (a Return Path subsidiary), Sanebox, and Gmail’s Priority Inbox. It dictates when messages are received and sent (Boomerang for Gmail), and lets users set reminders (FollowUp.cc) so they can ignore messages until they’re ready to read them.

Soon, experiences that once required leaving the inbox will start taking place directly from messages. Consumers will watch video, they’ll read Tweets, they’ll review offers based on geo-targeted messages. Thanks to widespread industry adoption of security advances like DMARC, people will even shop directly from the inbox of the future—although probably not in 2013.

Matt BlumbergCo-Founder,

Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman

Return Pathwww.returnpath.com

@MattBlumberg

As consumers rediscover email’s coolness and manage more of their lives from the inbox, they’ll offer marketers an opportunity to truly engage them.

So as consumers rediscover email’s coolness and manage more of their lives from the inbox, they’ll offer marketers an opportunity to truly engage them. One critical factor will separate brands that take advantage of this offer from the rest: intelligence. Marketers that succeed will know what devices their subscribers read email on, when they read their messages, what they do with them (move them, forward them, ignore them)—and use these insights to build highly customized, highly effective campaigns.

Meanwhile mailbox providers will offer an additional incentive: they’ll use some of these same insights to guide deliverability decisions, further distancing the smartest marketers from the rest.

Inspired Predictions for EMAIL13

Email Flexibility Unlocks True Creativity

Kristina HuffmanDesign Practice LeadExactTargetwww.exacttarget.com @ETDesign

In 2013, designers will stop redesigning the wheel with every email send and set up flexible email templates so they can increase production efficiencies and spend more time coming up with new ideas. Ideation and openness to change are innate to a designer’s nature and training and can be a hugely valuable asset in broader creative conversations outside of just cranking out emails.

We will all get our heads out of the “Apple tree” and start to recognize Android as the mobile market leader, accommodating its preview pane and image-blocking when we design. We will monitor the open tracking data and market share data and make appropriate, informed decisions for the future of our subscribers. Subscribers are starting to expect mobile legibility. Clear communication equals good design— don’t be deleted.

We will stop hoarding and hyper-analyzing all of our competitor’s emails. Instead, we’ll replace that time with true collaboration between internal stakeholders to develop and test new, crazy ideas that really speak to the personality and

uniqueness of our business. You sent a Columbus Day sale email, but can you really explain what Columbus Day has to do with your business? Be honest and transparent with your subscribers and they will return the favor.

The static, print-inspired email will die. Emails will not look the same in every email client, whether it’s because we’re using progressive enhancement tactics or responsive layouts. Content and design will be tailored to subscribers. This means giving up some control around how an email looks, which isn’t always easy.

Finally, we’ll see socially-ranked and curated content take front and center, letting customers connect directly with influencers. Customer-curated content is trustworthy and personal—two aspects of marketing that are the hardest to achieve. It’s a win-win—influencers are featured, which extends their reach, and marketers receive thoughtfully crafted content for their communications.

Let's create this future together!

The static, print-inspired email will die. Emails will not look the same in every email client.

14

MOBILE

Inspired Predictions for MOBILE 15

with Kraft Foods Group (now Mondelez) moving 10% of its media budget to mobile. In addition, the Mobile Marketing Association’s recent MXS mobile study recommended that marketers in 2013 should spend 7% of their budget on mobile advertising.

In 2013, mobile apps will move from being a brand’s playground to a strategic imperative:

• Smartphone users worldwide will download more than 45 billion apps this year—nearly twice the number of apps that were downloaded in 2011. (Gartner, August 17, 2012)

• Mobile apps are a $6 billion market today, growing to $55.7 billion by 2015.(Forrester, February 13, 2012)

• Consumer spending on mobile app stores and digital content will increase from $18 billion this year to $61 billion by 2016. (Gartner, July 12, 2012)

And now with push messaging, apps have a direct voice with all of their best customers and can reach out anytime, any place—without the app even being open. Push establishes direct-to-consumer communications with the future potential to steal advertising budgets from other channels as brands find higher response rates and a much lower cost—for example, sending Rich Push videos versus having TV ads being skipped over on DVRs. And there’s already growing evidence that push messaging is a primary reason that consumers keep some apps on their smartphones.

In 2013, location will become apps’ trump card. Apps will leverage location to offer more value and innovative features to users. Location insights will enable apps to attain an unprecedented level of messaging precision—not only knowing where you are right now, but where you’ve been…where you live, work, and play.

In 2013, we’ll see mobile advertising spend grow at an increasing pace. We’re not going out on a limb to say that mobile ad budgets will at least quadruple in 2013 as brand advertisers seek to be where consumers are. We’re already seeing evidence of this

Mobile Apps Become a Strategic Imperative

It’s probably time for us to just agree that this is the decade of mobile. The fact is that mobile changes things more than anything we’ve ever seen.

Let’s just get this out of the way and proclaim 2013 as another “Year of Mobile.” In fact, global PC sales were outpaced by total smartphone sales starting in 2011, so it’s probably time for us to just agree that this is the decade of mobile. The fact is that mobile changes things more than anything we’ve ever seen.

Brent HieggelkeCMO

Urban Airship www.urbanairship.com

@BHieggelke

Inspired Predictions for MOBILE16

The most advanced marketers will determine ROI based on market segment—or individual. ROI by segment (or individual) will show that different channels work for each consumer, each purchase path and each marketing goal.

In 2013, marketers will create simple to complex marketing campaigns that start, continue, and end on a mobile device. Accountability for mobile investment is coming in 2013, and the data is there. Where will this new ROI lead you?

Mobile ROI Takes Hold

2013 will be the year of the mobile return on investment (ROI). Marketers have already invested the resources into experimenting with mobile. In 2013, they’ll use data to prove what works, and what doesn’t.

No matter the sophistication level of a mobile program, marketers can calculate its ROI. And the good news with mobile marketing? The data is there. Clicks, opens, mCommerce conversions, coupon codes, in-app conversions... it’s a dream field of marketing data that can be used to quickly calculate the ROI of a mobile marketing investment. Doing so will lead to a number of shifts in 2013.

Marketers solely adopting mobile will recognize their mobile email open rate (some marketers are seeing mobile opens over 30%; others, over 50%!) and refine templates and practices for conversion on the handset or tablet. Seeing its return on investment, marketers will decide on how best to incorporate SMS and push messaging into a lifecycle marketing program, or whether to stick with transactional use cases only for those channels.

More advanced marketers will integrate advertising, email marketing, SMS/text marketing, and push messages into the ways they promote their apps and mobile websites. In calculating the ROI for a mobile website or app, marketers will abandon disparate marketing programs and go with fully integrated cross-channel programs that result in higher ROI.

Clicks, opens, mCommerce conversions, coupon codes, in-app conversions...it’s a dream field of marketing data that can be used to quickly calculate ROI.

R. J. TalyorVice President, Mobile ProductsExactTargetwww.exacttarget.com @RJTalyor

17

SOCIAL

Inspired Predictions for SOCIAL 18

Slimming Down, Shaping Up, & Getting Organized

It sounds like a New Year’s resolution that could easily go awry, but it sums up what will likely be a rude awakening for many marketers. Quality of fans and followers will matter more than quantity, and savvy marketers will begin to find creative ways to leverage social to drive more relevant, higher performing interactions with their customers.

1.CommunityCurating

In an effort to eliminate unnecessary noise, people will continue limiting their friends on Facebook and hiding content in their newsfeeds to only see what’s most relevant to them. Since most people are not emotionally connected to brands, we’ll also start to see people “unlike” and “unfollow” brands that aren’t adding any value. Brands will need to think carefully about the creation of relevant, timely, and valuable content to ensure they aren’t curated right out of the picture.

2. Social Re-Org 101

Many organizations haven’t figured out how to staff for social media, but they’ll have no choice in 2013. You’ll either see brands outsourcing community management or

staffing adequately in-market and-in region to ensure conversations are authentic and local. This will require support from executives—which means that the champions will need to prove why social media is critical to all areas of the organization, not just marketing and customer service.

3.Offline/OnlineSocialAdvertisingExperiments

As networks like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, and Pinterest look for new and imaginative ways to expand their percentage of the advertising revenue pie, we’ll experience some in-your-face bloopers that people will readily reject. We’ll also see creative uses of hashtags and conversation starters on TV, in-store, and on the radio.

Susan MarshallSenior Director, Product Marketing -

Social Product LineExactTarget

www.exacttarget.com @S_Marshall

Quality of fans and followers will matter more than quantity, and savvy marketers will begin to find creative ways to leverage social to drive higher performing interactions.

4.OneWorld,ManyVoices

We all know that social media enables communities to freely connect, mobilize, and swiftly make decisions. This is what’s so powerful and amazing about social media! These growing connections across regions will forge powerful social and economic relationships, resulting in new businesses, fairer trade, and community activism. What’s more, video will bring us all closer as we get to “know” our customers and vendors without travel.

Inspired Predictions for SOCIAL19

It’s usually not a matter of employees not wanting to share content about their company. Typically it’s that they either don’t know what to share, or they don’t want to say the wrong thing and get in trouble. So instead, they do nothing at all.

This can be easily overcome by putting syndication systems in place to distribute content and drive success toward your company’s key performance indicators. Internal metrics will no longer be just a luxury, but an absolute necessity. In addition, consideration for acknowledging and crediting your newfound evangelists will also be necessary to assist in supporting, rewarding, and perpetuating the behaviors you’re looking to encourage.

Without consistent recognition, your employees will likely lose interest and drop off.

Even so, the greatest challenge marketers will have is organizing and creating authentic content your employees feel is worthy of being shared.

Rise of the Amplified Employee

The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed the rise of credibility amongst regular employees in social media. The sudden rise in credibility was the greatest increase since 2004—one that should serve as a wake-up call to leaders and communicators.

Consider for a moment that in aggregate, your employees have an entirely different audience than your brand channels. It could be argued also that an enormous amount of intimacy, influence, and trust exists with these personal accounts vs. corporate channels.

Anecdotally, ask any person whether they’d rather talk to a logo or a real person on social media, and you’ll have a better understanding of how important placing faces amongst your brand can become.

To capitalize upon this trend, marketers will be required to think long and hard about putting together thorough training programs, conscientious social media policies, and inspired content that employees would want to share as brand advocates.

Ask any person whether they’d rather talk to a logo or a real person on social media.

Marcus NelsonCo-Founder and CEOAddvocatewww.addvocate.com @MarcusNelson

Inspired Predictions for SOCIAL 20

Social at ScaleReality Sets in. Business and brands have realized that they need to do social and do it well. So they create a soicla media marketing strategy and then they start implementing the tactics to achieve the doals. It all looks rosy at the state and everyone is excited. They staff is singing Kumbaya, the angels are dancing and every can't wait to play with the shiny social media toys. Social media is the new saviour.

Then reality sets in.

It takes a lot of resources. That means time, money and people. It needs creativity and inspiration. It requires a long-term commitment. Succeeding with social media is not a get rich quick scheme. Creating quality content takes skill, experience and expertise. Building tribes, followers and fans takes focused attention and engagement Obtaining 10,000 Twitter followers or 20,000 Facebook likes requires serious investment.

All these social networks have popped up and are screaming for attention.Social media marketing requires the day to day grind doing some of these key activities.

1. Designing, developing, optimizing and launching the social platforms such as blogs and branded social network accounts:2. Constant content creation, curating and sourcing3. Updating multiple networks daily with fresh content4. Monitoring and managing the engagement on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+ and others.

There was never a grand plan. Social networks are a global social and connected consciousness powered by technology that is evolving before our eyes. It’s fun, it’s crazy and it’s chaos.

It was one channel. Television or radio. Magazine or newspapers. Direct mail or telemarketing. You planned and set up your marketing campaigns for the year.

They started and finished. You moved onto the next one. That was it. They worked or didn’t work.

Social media marketing is a consistent and continual treadmill. Creating content needs to be done every day. Then monitoring the engagement and responding to Facebook comments and Twitter streams needs to be attended to. Often outsourcing it or asking the intern to take it on is not just going to cut it.

The reality is that marketing is moving from “campaign marketing” to “continuous marketing“. Marketing has now become a big daily commitment. That is a problem, because you need the technology and tools to do it at scale.

The reality is that marketing is moving from "campaign marketing to "continuous marketing"

Jeff BullasBlogger, Author,

Speaker, and CEOwww.jeffbullas.com

@JeffBullas

Inspired Predictions for SOCIAL21

The Year of the Social Brand Conversation

Iggy PintadoAuthor, Speaker

and Marketing Leaderwww.iggypintado.com.au

@IggyPintado

Chris BaumannSenior LecturerMacquarie UniversitySydney, Australia

Recently, we came across the story of a CEO of a large bank, who, when visiting one of their contact centers, was asked to monitor the bank’s twitter handle and to publicly respond – as the CEO – to tweets addressed to the bank. The tweets were a mix of comments, some positive and others ranging from small issues to complaints and rants. The CEO lasted five minutes, leaving the room stating that he was “out of his depth” in this space.

When asked why he could not cope, he replied by saying that he was comfortable speaking to people one on one about any subject relating to their dealings with the bank. He was also formally trained in public speaking so he could speak to many people in a mass audience situation.What he had difficulty with was replying at an individual level at the same time that a mass audience was listening, judging and ready to respond.

Herein lies the challenge with the ‘social brand conversation.’ Organisations now need to consider their attitude, behaviour and context towards the conversations they have in the social space to best manage their brand presence.

Connecting on social media has the potential to magnify your brand presence. In the year 2013, it is essential that messages communicated using social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are considered and protective, if not enhancing, of brand value. Therefore, an organization must understand their attitude and behavior towards social connection. A brand who is strategically prepared to have both the standard and the ‘tough’ conversations in a public forum is best positioned to develop greater trust and integrity with both their current and potential stakeholders. Such an attitude of being open, sincere and truthful complements brand values and perceptions, and will subsequently trigger effective behavior.

In saying this, this attitude must be reflective of the organization’s values and behavior in the brand presentation across all social conversations. While the strategic intent may be there, the brand experience should be consistent across all social brand interactions with the brand’s audience, offline and online, and using both traditional marketing channels and the new social media landscape. There are an increasing number of case studies of organisations setting up social media presences with the best intentions, only to fail when a situation requiring them to ‘step up’ to an issue is flawed by an inconsistency with their stated brand values and positioning strategy.

In a world drowning in content, ultimately context is king. Organisations need to understand and manage interactions relative to their brand and the market’s consumer segments, geographic regions, product and service categories they choose to serve. There are numerous social tools for monitoring brand mentions and sentiment. Organisations need to not only listen and respond appropriately to what people are saying about their brand but they also need to listen for relevant opportunities to develop more business in their chosen markets by engaging customers and prospects on platforms they choose to interact in.

An organisation must understand their attitude and behaviour towards social connections.

Originally published in Marketing Magazine (marketingmag.com.au) in 2012

22

MARKETING AUTOMATION

Inspired Predictions for MARKETING AUTOMATION23

Technology Optimized to Serve Customers

Stephanie MillerVP, Member RelationsDMA & Email Experience Councilwww.the-dma.org @StephanieSAM

Technology will not drive digital marketing innovation in the coming years. Smart marketers will. To be precise, smart marketers who use smart technology will drive the most innovation. But don’t get cocky, now. Marketers are not in charge—consumers are.

Marketing automation technology has advanced to unlock the mysteries of consumer data so that marketers can help enable and encourage fantastic and customized consumer experiences. The days of “set it and forget it” are over. One size fits all marketing programs—built in January and left to run through June—are no longer going to meet consumer expectations.

The best tool in our arsenal is great strategy—driven by consumer need, choice, and behavior. Consumers know that we have data about them, and they expect us to use it responsibly and respectfully. This creates a forced collaboration between marketers and their customers—with industry bloggers, analysts, and journalists chiming in too. This is the year of the great omnichannel marketing strategists.

Now, those brilliant strategists of the future look familiar because they are you and me and those folks down the hall who really get data analytics. Smart marketers will think outside the channel. Although most of our data today comes from email marketing interactions, we won't work from email data alone. Instead, smart marketers will analyze and utilize most (or all) of the data they have to consistently present messaging that reflects customer interests and passions. Yes, the technology is important (essential!)—but it doesn’t alone ensure engagement.

Now that the data is manageable and accessible, we marketers have the chance to stand up for our customers’ satisfaction. Smart marketers will put the customer needs first (and really first, not just first after the product needs). Driving response and revenue. I predict that marketers make this their mantra in the coming year. No one will do this because I predict it--they will do it because it’s what works.

As Uncle Ben said to Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Marketers, this is your year to use your big data technological power for the good of customer satisfaction.

Marketing automation technology has advanced to unlock the mysteries of consumer data.

Inspired Predictions for MARKETING AUTOMATION 24

Early Adopter Window Closing

Mathew SweezeyMarketing Evangelist

Pardot – an ExactTarget companywww.pardot.com

@MSweezey

If you're searching for a solid way to increase marketing engagement rates, look into marketing automation—and doing it sooner than later. Early adopters have already proven the advantages, and big gains are still there to be had by the next wave of companies adopting marketing automation.

The sizeable increase is directly tied to marketing automation’s ability to track individuals across multiple marketing mediums and keep a central database of their actionable, individual history. The history is then used to dynamically personalize marketing efforts to each person across any medium, at any time. This allows marketers to be infinitely more relevant to each person, increasing engagement.

These abnormally high gains will not last forever; however, they will continue for the next year or two. The next wave of adopters to marketing automation will be the early majority. These adopters will see the tail end of the largest returns from marketing automation. We should expect to see adoption creep into the mid-to-high 20% by the end of 2013.

Now that SEO, SEM, and social media are standard marketing avenues, the next wave of innovation for marketers is in the field of automated marketing.

The modern digital marketing revolution has spawned new marketing mediums and techniques such as SEO, SEM, and social media. The early adopters of these technologies have seen the largest gains for taking that initial risk.

Now that SEO, SEM, and social media are standard marketing avenues, what’s next? The new wave of innovation for marketers is automated marketing. Leading B2C and B2B companies and increasing marketing engagement through behavioral-based tracking and dynamic messaging are deploying marketing automation worldwide.

Currently, marketing automation is used by less than 15% of all companies in the United States. Despite its slower adoption rate, that 15% comprises leading companies like Restaurant.com. Some companies who have implemented this technology have reported an increase in revenue of over 300%.

25

NEW & EMERGING TRENDS

Inspired Predictions for NEW & EMERGING TRENDS 26

The Rise of the Chief Content Officer

Joe PulizziAuthor and Founder

Content Marketing Institutewww.contentmarketinginstitute.com

@JuntaJoe

2012 was the year content marketing came to life in North America. According to research from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, approximately 90% of all marketers use some form of content marketing. This means that now, when we say that marketers are publishers, it's a true statement. In addition, budgets for content marketing now surpass 28% for both B2B and B2C companies That's a lot of content!

But just because marketers can and do use content marketing, doesn't mean they do it well. Actually, there's something quite amiss with content marketing. According to the same research, just one in three marketing professionals feel that their content marketing is effective. Now this is a real problem, especially when more than half of these marketers are planning to invest more money into this area over the next 12 months. (Could this be the definition of insanity?)

So these marketers know that they need to be creating valuable and compelling information in multiple channels to attract and retain customers–but it's a struggle. After all, most marketers weren’t trained as journalists and publishers.

And now, to the inspired predictions for 2013:

1. �The�Rise�of�the�Chief�Content�Officer. More and more organizations (such as Kelly Services) will hire a dedicated "chief storyteller" to work with marketing and public relations departments to create a cohesive content strategy and unified customer experience around content.

2. The�New�Home�for�Journalists. In 2013, more journalists will be hired by non-media companies than by media companies.

3. Content�M&A. Google started acquiring smaller media companies, such as Zagat, over a year ago. In 2013, we'll start to see big brands in all industries start to purchase media companies. While many will still opt to build, many will just buy the media brand and talent as part of their content marketing initiatives.

Less than 5% of organizations have a written content marketing strategy. How can you develop winning content without a vision of what that content is supposed to do? My advice for 2013–find your content marketing mission statement.

My advice for 2013: find your content marketing mission statement.

Inspired Predictions for NEW & EMERGING TRENDS 27

A study by M2 Research predicted that the $100 million spent by corporations on gamification in will rise to $2.8 billion by 2016. Gartner estimates 70% of Global 2000 businesses will be gamified by 2015. Those numbers indicate that gamification is more than just a fad, but rather a true innovation that savvy marketers should capitalize on as early adopters.

Game on!

2013 Means “Game On” for Gamification

Christopher KrohnPresident & CMORestaurant.com

www.restaurant.com @CKrohn1

Marketing fads and gimmicks come and go— from sock puppet ads to Second Life virtual stores. Every now and then, however, true innovations emerge that revolutionize how marketers engage with customers. From where I sit, 2013 will be the year in which “gamification” moves from the periphery to the core of the cross-channel marketing tool set.

Marketing innovations tend to move through a classic product lifecycle curve: introductory phase, early adoption phase, late adoption phase, long maturity phase, and eventually decline. For cross-channel marketers, gamification is now entering in its introductory phase—but many are unsure if it is a true innovation or just another fad.

The rise of gamification doesn’t mean every brand will (or should) launch its own version of Farmville on Facebook—far from it! Cross-channel marketers should understand that gamification applies certain aspects of games to non-game applications, capitalizing on behavioral psychology to reward customers for changing their behaviors. The ultimate goal is to generate greater lifetime value and higher profits. When properly applied, gamification techniques have been shown to increase customer retention, social sharing behaviors, user content generation, acquisition campaign ROI, and online retail conversion rates.

Gamification works because humans are innately wired to compete—even if it’s just against themselves or a neutral “progress bar”—and game structures are an effective tool to get them to do so. The underlying mechanism here is dopamine, a powerful neurotransmitter and behavioral motivator that acts on the reward-seeking system of the human brain.

By providing the right rewards at the right time, a properly structured gamification program can prompt dopamine releases in the customer's brain and thereby incent and reward desired customer behaviors. Even more attractively, many of the best rewards like leader boards, "leveling up," achievement badges, and social recognition awards are non-monetary, creating highly attractive ROI scenarios for gamification marketing. And best of all, it's engaging and fun!

Gamification works because humans are innately wired to compete— even if it’s just against themselves or a neutral ‘progress bar.'