What is the Future of Marketing — 6 Technology Trends
6 Trends that will shape the Digital Marketing Industry for good.
The future of marketing is simple yet difficult. The Internet changed marketing into digital marketing. & These 6 trends will shape social media marketing, marketing in general & for marketing agencies it’s time to start the change.
Key points:
- Generation Alpha (people born between 2010–2025) will play a huge role in this new era
- Marketing cannot survive without technology, & technology will make marketers’ jobs easier & efficient.
- Blockchain & NFTs will play a key role.
- Artificial Intelligence will be at the heart of everything.
- The Digital & Physical world will blend completely for a better user experience.
I believe that marketing & branding is deeply connected to human psychology. That is why we have to look at digital marketing from the perspective of human behavior & human psychology.
We can easily predict the future by analyzing past & present trends because human behavior will never change.
And in the case of marketing, we know a few things that’ll be going to happen with 100% certainty but it will be difficult for marketers & marketing agencies to do these things.
Now, 2 very important concepts are playing a huge role in the success of any business & they are connected to marketing.
1) Convenience ….. 2) Attention
I will explore & predict the future of marketing while keeping these 2 things in mind.
Before moving forward we need to understand the relationship between marketing & technology.
Marketing & Tech:
Today we know that almost every company uses digital marketing. It is the firstborn child of marketing & technology love marriage.
digital marketing is simply doing all the marketing activities on digital platforms, the next wave was social media & marketing, which is now called social media marketing.
I think you guys got the point, but I’ll still explain.
Technology disrupted the marketing industry which was the same for the past 1000 years.
That is why we cannot ignore tech when we talk about the future.
Let’s Start:
The 6 technology trends that will shape the marketing industry for good.
1) Audio:
Let’s assume that I give you 2 options to order your food online.
Option 1:
Download the app for online order, set up an account, start looking for the food in the menu, once selected the desired food then put how much you want, & then the address & mobile number, & then the card details for a successful transection & the click order button.
Option 2:
Pick your phone & say loud, hey google I want 2 pizzas & a cool drink with some extra snacks at my address from Mcdonald’s at 7 pm.
Which option do you choose? I will choose option 2 & Why, The reason is convenience.
I said in the beginning that I will explore things from the perspective of convenience & attention.
Now Listen, Here the convenience in marketing will play a huge role. That is why Audio Branding will rise more & more. The same goes for podcasts. Podcasts (Audio only) are very high in demand because of this factor.
And because of convenience, I think Audio & Voice will play a huge role.
Blockchain:
NFTs & Cryptocurrencies are using blockchain technology And It will for the sure impact the Marketing & Branding Industries.
Dapps — There is no need for Brands to rely on app stores, they can create their decentralized apps (Dapps) & their domain name without renewing them. decentralized web hosting services only require a one-time fee & your domain name can be stored in your crypto wallet.
NFTs — There are thousands of ways brands can use NFTs in their marketing. I will not explore this in detail. But NFTs are the digital Assets that the marketers can use as an incentive & in many other ways & can give value to their audience.
Most brands launch their different product lines with NFTs attached to their product.
Check out all the latest NFT News on this Instagram “NFT”
VR & Metaverse:
VR & Metaverse are the ones that I’m very excited about.
We know that Virtual Reality is like fantasy or sci-fi but today’s technology is in such a state that it is now possible to live digitally.
Here the other important factor is attention.
Marketers are always looking for attention, where attention is, there we have to put our product or Ads.
As the audience is moving towards VR & Metaverse so the marketers will.
Virtual reality is huge & Blockchain will also play a huge role here. IN the metaverse many things we buy will be NFTs & hence the blockchain tech will impact virtual reality & marketing.
In VR, marketing will be as important as in the real world.
Soon we will have experts who can design ads for virtual reality. Experts who can design ads that we’ll put on the real estate we bought in virtual reality as an NFT.
Yes, the movies are coming to life.
Walking in a virtual world and seeing ads in different areas will be a common practice.
Many brands today are using VR to improve customer experience.
If we can try our new shoes or clothes at home Then there will be no need to go to the store & buy. And that behavior of consumers will increase not decrease.
In the future marketers will use many new innovative ways to interact with their audience in the virtual world.
Drones & AR:
We all know many brands are using drones for creating hype around their product.
These drones are changing the way Guerrilla marketing will be done.
Guerrilla Marketing is using unconventional marketing methods for brand awareness.
Intel Breaks Guinness World Records Title for Drone Light Shows in Celebration of 50th Anniversary.
In April 2021, Luxury car brand Genesis broke the world record by sending 3281 drones up to light up Shanghai’s international cruise terminal’s night sky.
Now here is the catch, I think that drones as a guerrilla marketing tactic are not the future. The future is Augmented reality, AR.
As we know Facebook launched its glasses with AR capabilities. That future is much much promising and exciting.
Imagine you are wearing those glasses & walking in the streets & seeing different unique ads.
That will be an entirely different experience. And that is why AR will play a huge role in marketing.
If companies can create a much better experience with less cost in AR they will not use expensive drones.
Artificial Intelligence:
Today most of the applications & Softwares marketers use are based on artificial intelligence & Machine learning somehow.
Now A.I is the science & engineering of making intelligent machines especially intelligent computer programs. (Prof John McCarthy)
Now there are many intelligent Softwares right now that can replace the entire marketing team. But we don’t need that, we need a creative team or maybe a One Person who can manage this Artificial Intelligence-based Softwares effectively.
That is why creativity & other soft skills will also play a huge role in the future.
A study showed by Statista that global A.I market revenues are expected to grow to $89.85 Billion in 2025 from $7.4 Billion in 2018.
A.I can help marketing in many ways. Mostly the big data problem. A.I & machine learning just love big data. They can analyze big data for finding marketing & business solutions to specific problems.
In marketing analytics, A.I is currently playing a huge role by creating meaningful conclusion from raw data.
We use A.I in many forms such as
- Chatbots
- Content Automation
- Automatic Ads buying
- Understanding consumer behavior
- Ads targeting etc
So, In the future A.I is like the internet, It will be part of everything we do, every software we use, every app we use.
Marketers in the future who will be called legends, all will be using A.I 100%.
Influencers:
Generation Z & Generation Alpha are the most important ones in this case.
Generation Alpha will be the most formally educated generation ever, the most technology-supplied generation ever, and globally the wealthiest generation ever.
(Mark McCrindle) who researched and confined the name for the generation born between 2010 and 2025.
And he is right. As this generation is completely born into the technology world. For them moving to VR & adapting to other unique tech is not unique.
Their attention span is very less that is why TikTok is popular among the young.
This generation is insanely affected by Influencers. They listen more to the individual saying something rather than the brand saying something. They don’t trust brands.
I won’t go deep here but to attract Generation Z & Alpha we need to connect with them emotionally & the success of TikTok & Personal Brands is saying that they are more inclined towards humans rather than brands.
And besides these 2 generations, this is human nature that we trust the words of a person who we might know rather than trusting a brand.
That is why Influencer Marketing will be important in the future & those are an in insane advantage who are currently building their personal brands.
Conclusion:
The coming future is the Blend of the Digital & Physical world with Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain & NFTs playing an important role. The need for soft skills & creativity will increase as most of the hard work will be done b Softwares. Generation Alpha & Z will be playing an important role in new trends adoption & consumer insights.
