After my own experience in the marketing world this yerand reading Kate Harrison‘s interview with Stacy DeBroff, CEO and founder of Influence-Central in Forbes magazine, these are definitely the Top 3 trends to watch/follow this year:
1. Experiential Marketing: Now more than ever customers want more than a great product or service, they want an outstanding experience. This is where companies have to get creative! I always love to shout out local companies that excel at this very task. My Event is The Bomb (MEITB) took the simple photo booth concept and turned it into a leaner operation physically as well as technologically advanced it with boomerang like GIFs that can be shared via social media and mobile phone. MEITB turns even the most boring party into a fun soiree.
My second example is Fluff Pop a gourmet cotton candy company that created an entire new experience with our good Ol’ cotton candy. They revamped an old school treat with a myriad of flavors (sriracha, lychee, mango just to name a few), reduced it to bite-size, and found different applications. One of those is utilizing the cotton candy as garnish for ice cream or fancy cocktails, as a sweetener for hot beverages or as a glow stick for fun parties. On top of all that Fluff Pop tastes delicious and I’m always happy to see them at parties :-).
2. Influencer Marketing: Consumers want to hear honest opinions from their peers or “Influencers” they value and trust. They want to relate to a real person not a supermodel or actress. Whether these opinions are always honest in another story… Especially fashion and lifestyle brands hire industry key players to promote their products. Companies that choose the right influencers (I posted here how to find the right influencer, scroll to 3.) tremendously grew their brands. Among those firms that successfully implemented influencer marketing are: Anastasia Beverly Hills, Fashion Nova, and Good American (sold $1 million in the first month). Khloe Kardashian is co-founder of Good American and she has not only utilized her high profile sisters Kim, Kourtney and Kylie to endorse her new denim line but also influential socialites, it-girls and curvy relatable women.
There is also a flip-side to this strategy unfortunately as some companies such as “Flat Tummy Tea” took their influencer program too far by overexposing their products. It has become very obvious that most of their influencers are paid to produce outstanding reviews. Consequently these type of firms lost credibility with many customers. If you have questions about influencer marketing feel free to email me or comment below.
3. Social Media: The power of social media in undeniable, it’s being used as a search engine for products & services and it re-directs the entire shopping process. In today’s day and age you can even conveniently shop directly off Instagram thanks to the Like2Buy platform and a new Instagram extension that is currently being tested with 20 retailers.
Additionally, most customer service can be resolved on social media. Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter also put pressure on companies on the flip side customers feel empowered by it. There isn’t a single company on this planet that wants other customers to see a bad review or complaint. Therefore public complaints have to be dealt will diligently and fast. Media faux-pas such as pull of the latest Pepsi commercial starring Kendall Jenner shows just how powerful social-media has become over the past few years.
It’s inevitable that social media has to be part of your marketing strategy nowadays. In order to successfully implement social media marketing your virtual image has to become consistent, super responsive and solve problems in a timely manner due to the simple fact of how people share and consume information in this technology advanced era.
Please let me know your thoughts or any questions you might have. This is a brief recap of marketing trends to watch/follow in 2017. I hope you enjoyed this read if you did like and share with family and friends!!!
XOXO,
Dynamically Branded