Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016INSIGHTS FROM GLOBAL MARKETING EXPERTS

MODERN MARKETING: 2016 IN REVIEW Modern Marketing has come a long way in 2016. More leading brands are using marketing technology to better understand their customers and provide a better customer experience than ever before. Data is part of nearly every marketing conversation. Customer obsession and experience is the main focus.

But this has also created a culture of more, more, more. More marketing technology solutions—nearly 4,000 of them—are available than ever before. More marketers are creating more content than ever before. Whether you view the marketing landscape as an embarrassment of riches that provides a myriad of choices for consumers or as a glut of tools and content that causes analysis paralysis and confusion, this was a year that will be remembered.

It was almost as hard to avoid Pokémon Go this year as it was to avoid discussions of the US election. These popular events brought the terms augmented reality and emotional brand connections to the forefront of marketing. They also changed the way many marketers thought about the mobile environment and the app land-scape. Months later, we ask questions about customer engagement and what to do when the event is over and nearly all the participants move on.

If you are a B2B marketer, this was the year that you announced your account-based marketing capabilities. ABM was everywhere, as it provided positive ROI and the promise of marketing and sales alignment. This approach is something that will quickly become the norm, as adoption of ABM seems to be quite rapid. This may seem like a fad, since fewer marketers will be talking about it, but many will already be doing it.

And finally some of our experts started seeing a slowdown in 2016 where market-ers fought against the tide of more and thought about less. Asking “Why?” and tying our marketing activities to strategies and business goals. Simplifying systems and eliminating data silos. Shifting from transactions to relationships.

As we close out each year, we hope to learn something that will improve our results in the coming year. Read on to see how this compares to your 2016.

Customer Experience

Data-Driven Marketing

Marketing Automation

Cross Channel Marketing

Mobile Marketing

Account Based Marketing

Content Marketing

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 03Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

GRÉGORY POUY | Founder, LaMercatique, Professor of Digital Marketing, Paris Dauphine University @gregfromparis | Website

According to Gartner, 89% of marketers want to differentiate themselves via the experience they are offering the consumers. 2016 is a year where experience is at the heart of debates in a world where content is getting more and more difficult to make emerge. (Source)

LEE ODDEN | TopRank Marketing @LeeOdden | Website

One of the biggest impacts on marketing in 2016 was a much greater focus on brands creating great customer experiences and they achieved that in a lot of different ways. They are using data. They are having empathy towards the kind of content that people want to read, formats they want to read, and where they want to read it.

There’s also been a dramatic increase in the appreciation of influencers and what influencers mean. Not just “brandividuals,” people who keynote and write books, but also people who are influential amongst their communities. These include internal subject matter experts, people in the media, customers, and even prospective customers. There’s been a lot more attention paid towards what can we do as a brand and use the resources available to us to actually connect with customers in a more meaningful way. Working with influencers and people who are credible is a great way to do that and bypass the roadblocks of adblocking and distrust of brand messages.

“89% of marketers expect customer

experience to be their primary differentiator.”— GARTNER

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 04Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

MICHAEL BRENNER | CEO, Marketing Insider Group @BrennerMichael | Website

40. That’s the number of times it takes for someone to see an ad after which your sales will start to decline. We have moved beyond the point where advertising no longer works, to the point where it is starting to have a negative impact on sales. As ROI pressure from CEOs continues, this is causing CMOs to more closely look at their advertising budgets. (Source)

SAM HURLEY | Founder, OPTIM-EYEZ @Sam___Hurley | Website

The focus on customer experience has been the most impactful method of marketing for brands that apply it successfully—driven through a blend of automation, machine learning, lead scoring and, of course, social media. 78% of social media managers recognise customer experience as an important component of their marketing strategy, although I’d personally class it as essential. Great experiences plant the seeds for an army of powerful, devoted brand ambassadors who will spread your word without question. (Source)

SCOTT BRINKER | Editor, chiefmartec.com @chiefmartec | Website

Marketing technologists have become an accepted part of the marketing organization—70% of companies globally have at least one person on the marketing team who is primarily responsible for marketing technology usage. This role has emerged from the shadows over the past several years and is now recognized as a valuable part of the modern marketing team. Great marketing must be able to effectively leverage the tools of the trade to meet the rising bar of customer experience expectations. (Source)

DOUG KESSLER | Co-founder and Creative Director, Velocity @dougkessler | Website

The statistic that inspires this look back at 2016 isn’t really a statistic. It’s the Chiefmartec supergraphic of marketing technologies. There are nearly 4,000 solutions on it, up from around 2,000 last year. The biggest impact in 2016 has been a negative impact: the accelerated fragmentation of the marketing ecosystem. I like Avinash Kaushik’s 10/90 Rule: invest 10% of your budget in tools and vendors, but 90% in your people and their training. (Source)

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 05Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

HEIDI COHEN | Chief Content Officer, Actionable Marketing Guide @HeidiCohen | Website

2016 was the year marketers stopped running after the shiny new thing. Instead they focused on improving the key elements of their marketing. MarketingProfs’ Ann Handley dubbed this “slow marketing.” But don’t just slow down! Be more effective to yield better customer relationships and profitable results. (Source)

EMILIE MARQUOIS-OGEZ | Social Media Planner, Eolina @eogez | Website

People watch Facebook Live videos much longer than the non-Live videos. This makes sense. Although, this shows that brands should use this type of communication to improve their engagement on Facebook and through their Facebook page. In comparison, Periscope is just as relevant but will have less impact, as Twitter still remains an elitist channel. (Source)

ANDRES MENAJOVSKY | Journalist and co-founder, Viuz & Co @Viuzfr | Website

At the end of 2015, McKinsey had released a study that is relevant for the entire year of 2016. The study states that 64% of companies that are defined as “Digital Leaders” give priority to audacity. The survey links audacity to other attributes: courage, the desire to innovate, and adding value. When speaking of Modern Marketing, we could mention any lever, but I believe that it is a state of mind, before being a question of expertise. (Source)

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

“2016 was the year marketers stopped running after the shiny new thing.”

— HEIDI COHEN

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 06Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING

MARKETING AUTOMATION

CHRIS MOODY | Content Marketing Leader, GE Digital @cnmoody | Blog

Companies that only adopt digital marketing perform 11% less than average. While companies that combine both strategic vision and embrace digital marketing perform 26% better than average. In this we see that both digital adoption and strategic vision are important. Companies that worked on digital features should focus on culture and strategy. (Source)

JOHN J. WALL | Producer, Marketing Over Coffee @johnjwall | Website

Predictive marketing kicks marketing automation up to the next gear. Being able to better prioritize leads, and rate new leads prior to sales engagement makes double digit increases in close rates possible. (Source)

CARLOS HIDALGO | CEO, ANNUITAS @cahidalgo | Website

The biggest impact has been the continued complexity of B2B buyers who now buy in committees. This means we no longer are focused on one decision maker, but more than six individuals, on average, who all have their own view, motivations, and biases to a purchase. Marketers are still struggling in terms of content marketing and demand generation according to recent research and the growing complexity will continue to make it more challenging. (Source)

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 07Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

MARCUS MILLER | Digital Marketing Strategist, Bowler Hat @marcusbowlerhat | Website

It’s a broad and complex landscape for digital marketers in 2016 and beyond. We have a highly diverse environment with search, content, email, online ads, and the myriad social networks which means that marketers are ever more time challenged and are often struggling to cover all the digital bases. Marketing automation, to some extent, helps address these issues and provides a highly personalised approach to marketing that has the potential to save time. Implementation is not always easy and things may have to get worse before they get better, but a committed approach to automating your pipeline will improve results and ROI on your marketing budgets. (Source)

MATT HEINZ | President, Heinz Marketing @heinzmarketing | Website

Marketing’s increased focus on sales enablement is directly and dramatically increasing sales conversion rates. According to a study earlier this year by Heinz Marketing and Highspot, more than 50% of companies that have committed to sales enablement efforts have experienced increases in sales conversion rates of greater than 10%. A full 23% of companies have seen conversion rates increase by 20% or more, and 11% have increased their conversion rate by greater than 30%. (Source)

MARKETING AUTOMATION

“Things may have to get worse

before they get better.”

— MARCUS MILLER

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 08Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

CROSS CHANNEL MARKETING

MOBILE MARKETING

DR. DAVE CHAFFEY | CEO, Smart Insights @davechaffey | Website

When considering cross-channel marketing, it’s logical to invest in integrating the channels that are already working well to drive sales. The Custora Pulse is really useful to benchmark channels since it shows what is driving sales amongst retailers—the top 3 channels are organic search (22%), email marketing (20%) and paid search (19%). (Source)

NATE RIGGS | Founder and CEO, NR Media Group @nateriggs | Blog

As of September 15th 2016, the mobile game Pokémon Go saw more than 500 million downloads in the first two months of the launch, while generating an estimated $500 million in revenue for gamemaker Niantic Labs and its partners. This rapid adoption, combined with a fast and successful revenue model has proven the business validity of SoLoMo app concepts, and in turn presented Modern Marketers with an intriguing new landscape of possibilities of local, relevant, personalized and entertaining means of brand engagement. (Source)

“Pokémon presented an intriguing new landscape of

possibilities of local, relevant,

personalized, and entertaining means

of brand engagement.”

— NATE RIGGS

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 09Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

KATY HOWELL | CEO, immediate future Ltd @katyhowell | Website

Each month, 8 in 10 internet users globally are now visiting or using social networks on their mobiles. Mobiles are the go-to device for social conversation. Brands need to be hyper-aware of the user experience both with content published on social platforms and linking out to web pages from social posts. All too often, the click-through experience results in user drop off as websites fail to manage mobile expectations. (Source)

MAGALI HEBERARD | Marketing and Communication Director, L’olivier – assurance @mheberard | Website

Pokémon Go beat all the downloading records of the app store in one week. The tsunami that is Pokémon is a perfect summary of the latest digital marketing revolutions: we do not even think mobile first anymore, we think mobile only. Gaming is a way unlike any other to do e-commerce, no matter the brand. The geo-tracking aspects of augmented reality have an enormous potential. Also, if we still had doubts, the speed at which this record was reached, reminds us that the gap between gaming and e-commerce has vanished. (Source)

“We do not even think mobile first

anymore. We think mobile only.”

— MAGALI HEBERARD

MOBILE MARKETING

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 10Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

PETER ISAACSON | CMO, Demandbase @peisaacson | Website

Account-Based Marketing is more than just a marketing strategy; it’s quickly become the cornerstone of most B2B marketing plans. In 2016, we saw more than 70% of B2B companies driving ABM programs to align their sales and marketing efforts, improve customer experiences, and accelerate their revenue gains. (Source)

NEAL SCHAFFER | CEO, Maximize Your Social @nealschaffer | Website

Clearly account-based marketing has had a huge impact on Modern Marketing in 2016. As the silo between sales and marketing continues to be broken down, and social selling and employee advocacy programs bring sales and marketing closer together, account-based marketing has emerged as a natural extension of these efforts for marketing to use increasingly sophisticated social CRMs. ABM combined with big social data and social ad custom audiences creates the ability to generate more revenue from targeted customers. With more than 90% of B2B marketers acknowledging that account-based marketing is either important or very important, it is clearly an idea that came out of nowhere to have a huge impact on Modern Marketing in 2016. (Source)

DAVID B. THOMAS | B2B Tech Marketer @DavidBThomas | Website

There’s no doubt that talk of account-based marketing (ABM) consumed the most oxygen in 2016. Whether you think it’s hype or a decades-old fundamental, one ITSMA study reported 84% of marketers said ABM delivers higher ROI than other marketing initiatives. Various other surveys placed the percentage of companies considering ROI in the next 12 months at “all of them.” (Source)

ACCOUNT BASED MARKETING

“Account-Based Marketing is

more than just a marketing strategy.”

— PETER ISAACSON

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 11Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

CONTENT MARKETING

JAY BAER | President, Convince & Convert @Jaybaer | Website

The near-universal embrace of content marketing as a core component of Modern Marketing had the biggest impact in 2016. The question is no longer “Should we do content marketing?” but rather “What content should we make, and how can it be optimized?” Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs research shows that 76% of marketers planned to create more content in 2016 than ever before, and that certainly appears to be the case. (Source)

MARK SCHAEFER | Executive Director, Schaefer Marketing Solutions @markwschaefer | Blog

The state of content distribution was thrown into chaos in 2016. Facebook had made a big push to get publishers onto Instant Articles and then changed direction mid-year, claiming their customers didn’t want to see news in their streams. Facebook also changed their algorithm to benefit content instead of links, upending the inbound model. Apple did away with its news stand and forced content into their own news app, sucking readers and revenue away from content producers. I expect to see more turmoil as channels push to be the preferred information eco-system and publishers figure out how to deal with it. (Source)

ANN HANDLEY | Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs @annhandley | Website

2016 was really the year that marketers slowed down and thought through some of those key things that they needed to think through to tee up their marketing for more success. At the dawn of modern content marketing just a couple of years ago, we were all about tactics. We were creating infographics, webinars, and white papers. But 2016 was the year that the smartest marketers really did pull back a little bit and ask that question “Why?” Why are we trying to do this? What are we trying to accomplish? Looking through some of those bigger strategic questions. I absolutely saw signs that marketers in 2016 were taking those steps to slow down, so that we can move fast later.

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 12Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

CONTENT MARKETING

YOAV SCHWARTZ | Co-founder & CEO, Uberflip @yostar | Website

We’re creating more content than ever. That’s a double-edged sword as now marketers can no longer just create content, but must show that it’s working. An inability to prove ROI resulted in lost budget and lost jobs in 2016. Only the strong continue to survive and their survival depends on actually controlling the creation of personalized, measurable content experiences—at scale. (Source)

ANDY CRESTODINA | Co-founder, Orbit Media @crestodina | Website

When we look back at 2016 and see what worked for brands, there are some things that people did that crushed it. There’s one thing that works really well. It’s the research-driven topics. It’s the companies that are doing original research and conducting their own studies and gathering their own data. Those companies are getting way better results with their content because that content is totally original. They own that statistic. They own that sound bite. It’s on their website and it’s attracting way more links and shares than a normal low quality post.

“Companies that are doing original

research are getting way better results with their

content.”

— ANDY CRESTODINA

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 13Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

CONTENT MARKETING

BRIAN HONIGMAN | Content Marketing Consultant and CEO, Honigman Media @BrianHonigman | Website

Marketers this year began to come to terms with the fact there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to marketing. Social media might not work for your business and that’s okay. Blogging might not be the best match for your audience and that’s fine too. What many businesses, brand managers, and marketers are starting to realize is that they need to take a more realistic approach to marketing. This entails finding the balance of not jumping on each new social channel when it launches or creating every form of content imaginable, but instead making a few smart investments through testing different channels and content types that seem like the best match for your goals to find out what works and what doesn’t.

72% of marketers surveyed said relevant content creation was the most effective SEO tactic, but with the amount of content being created today you’d think some marketers are competing for a Pulitzer Prize for their volume of efforts. If content drives search traffic for your business, then continue to invest in that strategy. If not, then invest in a different approach that works to drive results. 2016 was the year of doing what works on your terms to drive results from marketing. (Data Source)

LILACH BULLOCK | Consultant and Trainer, lilachbullock.com @lilachbullock | Website

2016 has been the year of content marketing. We’ve been seeing a great increase in company blogs, as well as in the amount of content that is being produced. In fact, statistics show that 76% of digital marketers are striving to produce more content this year, and over half (51%) of digital marketers are increasing their budget for content marketing. (Source)

“Marketers are starting to realize that they need to

take a more realistic approach

to marketing.”

— BRIAN HONIGMAN

Click to get The Future of Modern Marketing: 2017 14Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

CONTENT MARKETING

TIM HUGHES | Co-Founder, Digital Leadership Associates @timothy_hughes | Website

Beckon, the marketing performance data platform, analyzed over $16 billion in omnichannel marketing spend and announced their results at New York’s Advertising Week. They found that “a very small fraction of branded content—just 5 percent of it— counts for 90 percent of engagement.” This means we have 1950s-style broadcast marketing, live and well, with social as just a modern wrapper. Marketing departments need to move away from talking about themselves and understand there is only one thing people care about. And it isn’t the brand. (Source)

CYRIL BLADIER | Digital Evangelist and CEO, Business-on-line @Cyril_Bladier | Website

Only 30% of content marketing is effective, which is down from 38% last year. This data looks like other figures that reflect the same thing: 67% of advertisements are “proposed” to involuntary targets; 96% of consumers say they have received irrelevant messages or promotional offers. Among the consequences: 94% of consumers stop following a brand because its advertisements and promotions are not relevant. This is a very good representation of content marketing.

Today, even though we have many possibilities brought to us by big data, many experts, consultants, and agencies continue to think that content marketing and digital channels are push solutions. We look to push our content everywhere, by any means possible, without truly getting to know our market. Content marketing, in 2016, looks a lot like hope marketing. We diffuse our content as much as possible hoping that Google will detect it and that targeted consumers or buyers will find it. (Source)

15Modern Marketing Year in Review: 2016

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