8 Marketing Trends to Watch in '08

January 2008

The MediaBrains newsletter has been around exactly one year now – but the people behind it are heading into their 20th year in marketing and advertising. Here are our predictions for the top 8 trends of the year, as well as some tips for how to make the most of them to increase sales and grow your business in the New Year.

1. Green is Growing
Whereas in the past “green marketing” was a trendy buzzword, it’s now become an important marketing strategy. Things are moving a little more slowly in the BtoB marketplace, but they are moving. BtoB marketers, such as IBM (green data centers), International Paper (paper and packing products), Boeing (commercial airplanes) and Siemens AG (infrastructure automation) are just a few examples of the BtoB marketers who have come to realize and embrace the fact “eco-friendly” is the wave of the future. As a result, millions of dollars are being put into marketing the green angle. As the environment continues to be an important issue for businesses, politicians and practically everyone else on the planet, green marketing will continue to grow.

2. Social Networks: Join the Club
Wise marketers will capitalize on the growing appeal of social networks. Social networks such as LinkedIn and Plaxo are now commonplace web stops for BtoB professionals. Late in 2007, LinkedIn launched a new platform that promises to make the website more useful to its millions of business users. eMarketer estimates that advertisers will spend $900 million on social networking sites in 2007, increasing to $2.5 billion in 2011. Marketers hope that brand messages will spread virally from friend to friend and colleague to colleague.

3. Capitalizing on Online
Interactive marketing spending will more than triple over the next five years, reaching $61 billion by 2012, according to Forrester Research. 2008 may be the year in which budgets for online marketing exceed money earmarked for traditional media. According to BtoB’s 2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans survey, 79.1% of marketers are planning to boost their online budgets this year. The survey also found that the average percentage of the marketing budget spent next year on online marketing will be 33.8%, up from 26.5% in 2007.

4. Mobile: The Hottest Web 2.0 Yet
With the release of Apple's iPhone – whose users are widely BtoB customers – mobile now rules as the hottest content type that companies must master. Devices that deliver true mobile internet access will replace laptops, which everyone hates to carry no matter how light they claim to be. Formatting content to be compatible with a whole host of business-traveler-friendly mobile devices is key. As technology improvements create new opportunities, this is the year in which mobile deserves a closer look. Mobile marketers can deliver highly personalized and useful information when and where needed. The question of the year that has yet to be answered: Are marketers skilled enough to take advantage of this rapidly changing landscape?

5. Video Content is King
Even my 70-year-old father has a high-speed internet connection, as does every business imaginable and even BtoB buyers at retirement age. According to many estimates, broadband penetration has reached 75 percent of the U.S market, making streaming video a “must” marketing tool. In fact, eMarketer reported that 123 million Americans watch a video at least monthly, and three-quarters tell a friend or business colleague about it. Whether a you are a B2B or B2C marketer, video is an enormous opportunity to engage, educate and entertain (what Chief Marketer calls the new “Three Es” of successful marketing). 2008 is the year in which online video will become so widespread, including live and mobile, that everyone will wonder how the internet existed without it.

6. Lead Generation
With the proliferation of content readily available online, the 2008 marketer must seize the opportunity and provide relevant, timely and useful information. In return, buyers will be willing to divulge some personal data – such as email addresses and phone numbers. Value could be in the form of a deal or discount, but it could also be intellectual capital such as white papers on hot industry topics or case studies showing how their peers solved a common challenge. Positioning your company as an expert source of reliable information, providing value-adds or offering special online pricing could open a treasure chest of lead generation opportunities.

7. Targeted Messaging
With every C-level’s eyes focusing on the ROI of marketing – and the price of search marketing continuing to rise - ensuring the audience is highly targeted is crucial for every BtoB marketer this year. Casting the widest possible net only to catch a few of the type of fish the marketer wants is no longer a solid strategy. Now, finding targeted BtoB buyers and reaching them at the right moment is the goal of more and more savvy marketers.

8. Segmentation
Hand in hand with targeting goes segmentation. Is there a different audience for your various products or services? If so, develop messaging accordingly. As Google has become so common that it is now used as a verb, searchers are becoming more savvy. To get the most relevant results, they search the way they think: by the challenge they have or the solution they think they need. As a result, marketers in ’08 must practice good segmentation, and organize content by pain points – for example, a telecommunications company would do better to use keywords such as "tracking out-bound sales calls" or "improve sales management," rather than ambiguous industry terms like "call accounting."