How To Keep Your Marketing Efforts Relevant In 2017

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Life moves fast these days, and marketing is no exception. The digital economy has corrupted marketing with its ease, controllability, and large audience. Heather Rim mentioned in her 2017 Relevance Report that the concept of putting the effort into one advertising environment for your business’ success is obsolete. The approaches that have gone before are now obsolete.

The 2017 Relevance Report was issued by the USC Center for Public Relations, and predicted the factors that will affect the business and marketing sectors in the next year. Here, we will walk you through the main ideas in the report, and hear what some reputable business leaders have to say.

Concern # 1 - Sustaining your reputation as a trademark

Standing still is the direct consequence of relevance. The audience expect effort of a company, and full care in responding to them. Your offers must meet their demands and be of value in order to prove your relevance.

Caroline Dettman, Chief Creative and Community Officer, tells us that audiences see countless ads and messages every day. You should follow a certain procedure to ensure you are on the right path. First, you must be certain about whether your brand is relevant; determining this is the first step to becoming relevant. Second, you must set a definition of the word “relevant” so the standards you are reaching for are clear. Third, you must know the needs of your audience, and why they should care about what you do.

Being relevant might seem obvious, but just accepting it as something you need is not going to get you there. You need to take action. However, only great brands remain relevant for a long time. Kathryn Wheel provided some examples of brands that stayed relevant, with a glance at the way they did it.

A long-term marketing strategy demands consistency in its application -  if it were easy, everybody would be doing it!   

Concern # 2 – Videos as a weapon in the media’s arsenal.

As mentioned earlier, people demand a lot of changes, and the change rate in the marketing sector can be considered exponential. So continuous reinvention and creativity are essential to give users what they what. Video and VR aid such a process as they are a cretive medium that gets a message across succinctly.

Cindy Gordon, Vice President Corporate Affairs, Nintendo of America, says that videos influence many customers, and is an enormous boost to a marketing campaign.

Videos cost a lot, but they are worth it! Brands must allocate a considerable budget when starting a video marketing campaign; being stingy here will waste your efforts. A focused strategy paired with a decent budget will pave the way to a great marketing campaign.

Heather Rim, AECOM, says that marketers are currently considering the most prominent methods to understand how stakeholders respond to their campaigns. VR is a crucial tool in modern marketing as it allows people to experience the promise of using advanced technology to make a better world. The focus is currently on dynamic media, and marketers are offering customers an invitation to a virtual world where dreams come true, and goals become a reality. They disregarded the use of tedious static media methods. For instance, they create a virtual reality experience that performs like magic, such as previewing projects for customers with a hologram. Years ago, a decorated flyer or brochure would have been sufficient to attract customers and preview the projects - which shows the rapid change in the marketing world!

Concern # 3 – Employee endorsing effectively in describing precisely what the brand is about.

The audience tend to not accept direct messaging; however, they prefer the same messages through social media. This is more accepted psychologically, and social media messages better hold the explicit definition of the brand. Such endorsement actions will plant the idea you are confident about your brand.

Bob Feldman, co-founder of the PulsePoint Group, also mentioned that the high acceleration in marketing is very significant because controlling your reputation becomes very important, but very difficult, at the same time.

The Senior Vice President of Global Communications at Starbucks, Corey duBrowa, has also noticed the tendency of today’s audience to trust social media, rather than traditional media. The 2016 Trust Report by Edelman demonstrated some results regarding the brands that appeal to young customers, where advocates from the own company surpass the performance of journalists or bloggers.

Concern # 4 – Factors affecting the content’s lust.

Content has always been the most powerful tool to engage your audience, and show them what your brand is about and where it’s going. In the past, marketers used to focus on sending ascetic messages, but now they need to write inspiring stories to make their brand shine.

A lot of people use websites like Freelancer to post projects concerned with content writing and marketing, where they hire professional writers to lead their marketing campaign, and make it stand out.

Corey duBrowa says the audience’s demands for content are crystal-clear, and only four parameters affect how they get along with any content:

  1. Novel and didactic information.

  2. A video collection which enhances understanding.

  3. Authenticity through representing the sponsor.

  4. Mentioning a personal incident or struggle, to highlight that the brand was initiated for a cause.

According to Bob Feldman, data visualization and lengthy videos no longer drive a groundbreaking campaign, but content writing on social media is showing great enhancement in the marketing sector. He urges companies to embrace the move towards content writing, and thinks the number of social media users will continue to grow, so this environment is ideal to concentrate on.

Corey DuBrowa also agrees with the concept of applying creativity in content writing to satisfy customers. He mentioned the hardships in formulating stories that will make the audience engage with the brand’s history, and create an emotional reaction toward such stories.

The social media environment is growing very quickly. A study by Pew Research Center depicted that more 50% of Earth’s citizens login into any social media platform to contact with people, along with sending and receiving information.

Corey, along with his staff, work relentlessly on developing the content of Starbucks by focusing on its activities to create connection with the audience.  

The Relevance Report of 2017 shined the light on only four main parameters: media, networking, modern technology, and brand. These parameters are very powerful because they forecast what is going to become big on the market.

Got more to add on what keeps marketing relevant? Drop us a comment below.

Posted 7 September, 2017

EdwardSuez

Sales & Marketing Guru

Edward is the Sales & Marketing Correspondent for Freelancer.com. He is currently based in Sydney, and is a self-confessed ice-cream fan.

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