Five Marketing Trends To Follow In 2024
Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting, it’s crucial to incorporate the latest marketing trends into your strategy to stay competitive and relevant in today’s marketplace. A well-informed marketing strategy is a driving force behind building a successful business.
What consumers want, need, and expect from brands today looks far from what it did five years ago. Digital marketing trends constantly change, forcing businesses to adapt their strategies accordingly. Check out the five trends I see as a driving force to stay ahead of the curve in 2024.
Video marketing – Short-term videos are key for any business. No one has an attention span anymore, so play into that and create a robust series of short videos that are engaging and easy to remember. Whether it’s a pre-roll ad on YouTube or an Instagram reel, short videos are low cost, easy to make (do you have a smartphone?) and give your business an easy-to-access medium to connect with your audience. HubSpot Blog Research reported that 90% of marketers using short-form video will increase or maintain their investment in 2024, and 1 in 5 marketers plan to leverage short-form video for the first time in 2024. Hop on the bus, as this trend is hot!
The QR code—This handy little tool was the black sheep for quite some time. Then COVID hit, and wham! QR codes have emerged as the preferred method of reaching those who don’t want to type in a URL. This trend will continue in 2024 for TV, direct mail, press releases, social posts, and beyond. Don’t forget to set up your analytics to track it, as I bet you’ll be surprised at the rate of return.
Personalized communications – Gone are the “one size fits all” messaging tactics where you repeat your messaging in the same way on every platform. Yes, I’m looking at you – if you’re doing this, please stop! People are more likely to pay attention to content customized to their needs (can you say artificial intelligence), and they are also more likely to engage and react favorably to it. Market segmentation is more crucial now than ever, so clean up those lists and dig deep into your analytics to see what makes your customer base tick.
Email marketing lives on—In fact, email marketing is essential, and given the number of tools we have at our fingertips, you can slice and dice your audience, so your email marketing message remains a valuable piece of content rolling into 2024. This is where your marketing segmentation will soar high, so ensure you have a robust email marketing platform, remain in compliance with existing federal regulations, and work on an email calendar of content to keep your audience engaged.
Sales and marketing alignment for the win – I know. Sales and marketing should always play nice in the sandbox, but I have seen some severe wars between the two. “Smarketing” is a thing, and it’s critical to ensure these departments are working in tandem to target a suitable customer base and drive more sales. There are some excellent tricks to help with this alignment.
Creating buyer personas to educate sales on who they’re selling to, what they care about, and how your business can help them. When marketing can create sales-enabled content and set up email templates in your CRM, both teams will begin to see the results of the partnership.
Look at the big and small picture. While marketing often looks at the small picture, like a specific marketing campaign, sales look at loyal customers or the big picture, and these teams need to meet in the middle to achieve that growth goal.
Defining key metrics such as milestones and conversions that help measure the sales and marketing impact is a great benchmark. From sales leads on the tradeshow floor, email open rates, and newsletter sign-ups, anything that indicates a rise or decrease in interest should be tracked. Use these metrics as the starting point for continued conversations between sales and marketing so refinement can be collaborative.
When these two crucial teams can align, the result will be far better for the organization. Remember, this isn’t about power – this is about growth, where everyone wins (think end-of-year bonus).
