Till a few years back, a powerful weapon for marketers was the digital cookie. The cookie would track user patterns on the browser and would target advertisements accordingly. This worked well till the advent of smartphones which has meant that now most of us spread our digital footprint across various browsers across devices. Thus a more human centric approach is required. Market research conducted by eMarketer publication tells us that by the year 2018, nearly three-fourths of digital marketing sped will be on smartphones. The Facebook Atlas provides us with an alternative way of conducting the same. The Facebook ID is tracked and using that the person’s usage habits are tracked across devices and platforms. Customers must be urged to somehow inform marketers regarding preferences and choices.

With the online shopping footprint ever increasing, certain predictions have been made in this regard for the new year. Whether the journey lasts from awareness to final purchase will largely depend on emotional connect and not the price tag alone. Certain marketing channels will get found out and phased out by customers. Customer decisions will get fortified by influencers promoting certain brands over others. Advertisements will get more interactive to get better results from digital marketing campaigns. Social media will aid corporations in this regard. Time lag between choosing a product and its delivery will reduce due to emergence of pick-up option from stores. Sales teams will utilize business analytics to conduct locations tracking of potential customers using mobile phones and trigger action. Mobile phone searches will be driven by the three pillars of speed, trust and convenience. The sales decision online will however be dependent on the quality of smart phone visuals. Finally, the level and type of online purchase will depend on the learning styles of individuals namely whether they prefer visual, auditory or kinaesthetic modes.

Marketers made certain predictions for their field before the start of 2015. Now with 2016 set to begin, certain predictions have been made for the upcoming year. User experience will get paramount importance as marketers will try to hook customers using samplers. Majority of top brands will adopt local customs to emerge winners in micro-markets. The proper use of business analytics will start co-relating to marketing efficiency. More number of markets and segments will get explored in upcoming times. Networking will continue to remain important and fruitful connections will be sought. For digital marketing, the smartphone will reign supreme replacing laptops and desktop computers. Corporate strategy will get influenced by digital assistants. Search engines such as Google will now provide instant social media content as well. Likewise, social SEO will further influence brand visibility. Finally, local search engines will expand to the extent that local sellers will be able to track customers and notify accordingly.

Social media has proven to an integral cog for digital marketing in the year 2015. Going on to 2016, social media can actually prove to be a game changer in certain ways that have been identified. Videos will continue to rule the roost and more of that is needed across social media platforms. With increasing importance of the social media, cyber security will attain top importance to prevent leakage of data which would facilitate competitors’ business intelligence grasping abilities. Advertisements will now be powered by branded content. Customization for individual users will gain traction. Till now social media was more of a branding tool, but now it will actually start generating the final sales. Crucially the Internet of Things (IoT) will enable increased level of social intelligence allowing smart devices to extract further data and even analyze on its own market trends.

Marketing remains the proverbial backbone of businesses. In spite of the new found popularity of digital marketing, traditional methods need to be equally respected and learnt from. Traditional methods laid the foundation for the modern growth story. The methods sought to achieve consistency across its branding towards customers. While certain markets are ideal for digital methods, other demographics are better suited to the traditional approach. In this way separate business channels may be aligned towards common company goal. Quality must never be left to deteriorate. Business innovation must never be carried for the sake of it, instead one musts tick towards what the brand really stands for. A perfect example would be Coca Cola’s innovation with the drink which left customers frustrated and seeking the old taste they were habituated with. The original product created a lasting impact, which is what marketing approaches ultimately must aim at.

Content marketing has emerged as a very powerful tool to drive sales. Certain techniques have been identified by an online management consulting publication which can help out in this matter. The first of them is to experiment with niche ads. Testimonials must be included in advertising campaigns. Successful posts must further be expanded onto. Businesses in order to grow can interchange content with one another. Modern marketing has also tried to bridge its gap with sales by being more holistic in approach. Industry experts may also be leveraged for driving direct sales. Live chat is another powerful tool that has emerged in recent years. Lost leads must be retargeted and not be given up easily. Follow up however must be strong and with conviction about the product. Email remains among the most effective ways to conduct digital marketing. CTAs or Calls To Action is another thing that must be liberally applied.

The mobile phone has made such inroads to life that increasingly this is being perceived as the only means of internet usage for many. Smartphone connectivity has spiked and people are using them extensively to access the internet. To give an example, British singer Adele recently released a new song, which the next day after release had been viewed more than twenty seven million times. This is creating numerous opportunities to marketers who are now able to access vast quantities of data. Starbucks is one such organization which realized that people want minimal wastage of time and thus they created an app using which consumers could pre book their morning coffee at the nearest Starbucks store. Budweiser in Ireland gave an offer by which beer prices reduced on warmer days and in order to counter this, another beer brand Murphy’s used the medium of digital marketing to advertise their free beers on rainy days. Mobile brand advertising is set for a period of robust growth.