Know your past to know your future: Developments of years past such as marketing automation and artificial intelligence give us some understanding of what will be important in the new year. Other changes have been announced for a while and will finally take effect. We have summarized four things that you should keep an eye on in the coming months below.
GDPR
The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is not just a trend, it is a fact. From May 25, 2018, it will take effect across the EU. It affects not only companies based in the EU, but all companies interacting with EU residents.
The GDPR will standardize data protection in Europe, which should provide more clarity for international companies. In some areas, however, stricter regulations will present challenges. The topics transparency and the right to be forgotten in particular are concerns that businesses will have to adapt to. Since some aspects of the GDPR have not yet been tested in practice, the interpretation of the regulation will occupy companies and marketers throughout the year.
We summarized key points of the basic regulation in a white paper. Download it for free here.
New forms of advertising
Google is working on an ad blocker for its Chrome browser. Among other things, autoplay videos are automatically switched to mute. This is surely a blessing for users. Advertisers, however, need to be flexible in 2018 and find new ways to get their messages in front of prospects.
Therefore, it can be assumed that brands will increase their Influencer Marketing budgets in 2018. We might also see an increase in product placement, forms of native advertising and altogether new strategies.
Interactive content
Content Marketing had become a major consensus topic by 2017 with increased investments across industries. Content alone is not the solution to all problems. After all, marketing is all about attention. Since most companies offer infographics and white papers, produce videos and write blogs, it is increasingly difficult for individual actors to stand out. That is why interactive content is very much en vogue. If users can interact with content - such as tests, games, interactive graphics, or augmented reality - this experience will be far more memorable than passively consumed content. The interactive content will also spread better organically and deliver better, behavior-based data.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Marketing platforms collect and process a large amount of data. These platforms will continue to become better at making decisions based on this information - for example when to launch or stop campaigns across various channels.
Artificial intelligence is already being used in the form of chat bots. This topic has drawn a lot of attention in the past year and it will certainly continue to establish itself this year.
Read more: Content Marketing.
