Marketing Tactics That Won’t Fade Away in the Post-Digital World

The past few months I have been pretty vocal about the post-digital world –  how marketing must focus on the experience economy, foster an environment for borderless business, and create data-driven strategies to harness the demands of customers and deepen relationships with them.

While we are currently living in the digital marketing era, we’re still constantly evolving to stay ahead of the next market change. With any new industry disruption brings a search for new talent and fresh skills to ensure your brand is well-equipped and remains relevant, no matter the era.

As marketers, we’re continually striving to embrace new technology to help us achieve our goals, but it’s important to remember that some of the current tried-and-true marketing tactics are still very relevant. Just like customers’ needs change, so do many of our current technologies, and understanding how to best utilize your current platforms within your marketing practices can’t be overlooked.

Some fundamental tactics have been the same as they were decades ago – focused on telling compelling stories around the brand that connect to human needs, and inspires customers to act, which creates more value. Here are some marketing tactics that have been trending over the last decade, including how they have evolved and why they warrant a continued focus in your marketing toolkit:

Social media

Early this year, many of the social media giants announced changes to algorithms that would downplay posts by publishers and brands to emphasize content by friends and family. Facebook was the first, then Instagram, and then we saw Twitter subtly tweak its algorithms so content of interest would come up first in your newsfeed. It’s estimated that in 2019, there will be around 2.77 billion social media users around the globe, up from 2.46 billion in 2017. These numbers will continue to influx overtime and omnichannel management will become more important in ensuring that quality and personalized content are being distributed through each channel, and that each channel is monitored closely. It may not always be easy to overcome challenges that block our messages, such as the social algorithms, but as our social media lead Joie Healy says, the key to breaking through the noise is to keep taking chances, try new and different things, and listen to your audience.

Content marketing

Content marketing budgets and investments will continue to rise and experts expect it to become a $300 billion industry by 2019. More engaging content will require good writers, designers, visual artists and video experts to keep content strategies competitive. Ads are decreasing in popularity as people search for authenticity and meaningful content before making an engagement or purchase decision. This is why video has been resonating well with today’s consumers – for example, 500 million people watched videos daily on Facebook. SEO knowledge will remain significant to help brands build their online presence and track successes of their digital marketing activities as teams adopt new content medium like video and branch into new platforms.

Data intelligence and measurement

Silos are crumbling, multi-touch attribution is growing in importance, and marketers can now measure online and offline engagements with customers. This is essential to omnichannel success in the post-digital world, especially as data volume continues to grow quicker and data managers are required to keep up – while operating at an increasingly granular level. Determining which data is meaningful and creating a solid strategy to monitor, track, and manage those metrics will be fundamental to the success of delivering personalized experiences across all marketing channels.

The good news is that with the rise of automation software and emerging tech with AI and machine learning capabilities, marketing and sales teams can have the cross-channel campaign data they need, even though online and offline data can cause a blur. We’ll dive deeper into this topic in Part II of this blog series.

Social media, content marketing, and data intelligence and measurement, are just a few of the tried and true tactics here to stay. But as you can see, the methods required to maximize success around each platform are what has evolved in recent years due to the increased demand for more personalized experiences within customer journeys.

Change won’t stop here, so staying relevant in the ever-evolving digital world is necessary to keep customer needs first. Nurturing a mindset for continual or lifelong learning will help teams and talents continue to adapt to disruptive trends, harness them to create new opportunities, and minimize transition challenges. This goes for experts of all levels and backgrounds.

There is a lot to cover on this topic, and it’s one I’m passionate about. Next up, I’m going to talk about how these tried-and-true tactics can be used to complement some new marketing tactics that are influencing the industry. In the meantime, share your thoughts below on how marketing tactics are evolving, what that means for hiring future marketing talent, or feel free to drop me a question. Stay tuned for Part II!