We entered Q3, and many companies have the habit of starting to plan for the next year right from Q2 or max Q3. If you have initiated planning your marketing strategy and budget for 2018, be prepared to face questions regarding tactics you are opting to use that would go best with most of your customers. And most importantly, which tactics can result in the most efficient conversion.

To plan a perfect marketing strategy for your business in 2018, go through the top trends explained here and incorporate them in your planning process. I will go through all the best strategies for acquiring leads, conversions customer connections and engagement.

1- Mobile & Master Micro-Moments
How Micro-Moments Are Changing the Rules ?

Consumer behavior has changed forever. Today's battle for hearts, minds, and dollars is won (or lost) in micro-moments—intent-driven moments of decision-making and preference-shaping that occur throughout the entire consumer journey.

As mobile has become an indispensable part of our daily lives, we're witnessing a fundamental change in the way people consume media. What used to be our predictable, daily sessions online have been replaced by many fragmented interactions that now occur instantaneously. There are hundreds of these moments every day—checking the time, texting a spouse, chatting with friends on social media.

But then there are the other moments—the I want-to-know moments, I want-to-go moments, I want-to-do moments, and I want-to-buy moments—that really matter. We call these "micro-moments," and they're game changers for both consumers and brands.

Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device—increasingly a smartphone—to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped. In these moments, consumers' expectations are higher than ever. The powerful computers we carry in our pockets have trained us to expect brands to immediately deliver exactly what we are looking for when we are looking. We want things right, and we want things right away.

Some recent research conducted by marketing guru's:

Of leisure travelers who are smartphone users, 69% search for travel ideas during spare moments;

Of smartphone users, 91% look up information on their smartphones while in the middle of a task;

Of smartphone users, 82% consult their phones while they're standing in a store deciding which product to buy;

Of online consumers, 69% agree that the quality, timing, or relevance of a company's message influences their perception of a brand.

The successful brands of tomorrow will be those that have a strategy for understanding and meeting consumers' needs in these micro-moments.

Marco Maruccia Tip 1: Create a useful, quick and one-touch access to the needed information of your potential clients because these will be the basis of acquiring customer trust and building long-lasting relationships in the near future.


2- Video more Important than ever
For all the exciting and informative things founds online, whether it is a couple of kittens playing, a baby laughing, or a top commercial featuring a popular model, there is always an element of video. With a video, people tend to accept and attach on a much deeper level due to the usage of visually-rich and interactive elements depicting a proper message or story. And as a consequence, audience is tempted to take considerable action in terms of likes, sharing, etc.

With time, brands have been able to capitalize on the introduction of highly-engaging video features on different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram.

For this trend, we are going to focus on video aspect only since businesses are seizing the opportunity to differentiate their brand in the competitive industry.

Mobile users are tending to spend more time than ever with their smartphones, with the excitement to watch videos online being proportionate as well. It is clear from the following stats that online video is growing rapidly in popularity.

YouTube registers more 18 and above years-old audience during peak TV hours than any cable TV network.

Advertisers on prime time broadcasting TV could gain 56% more audience of 18 to 49 years-old through advertising on YouTube.

Plainly from statistics, it does not come as a surprise that Facebook recently revealed the count of 1.65 billion active users (data from April 2016) watching about 8 billion videos each day.

Marco Maruccia Tip 2: Facilitate video marketing, consumers are more tempted from videos because of the deeper attachment they experience from the visual on-screen elements. Realizing the need, the trend of promoting high-quality video content is very much likely to soar high in future.

3- Say ‘Yes’ to smart content
In 2018, one thing is for certain that content marketing is going to be the core focus when devising a marketing plan while running hand-in-hand with a very important goal: a personalized experience for each customer.

A new visitor just navigates on your website. The message you want to communicate them would be different than the message running for an existing customer. For this new visitor, a standard message containing a ready-made snapshot of your offers and a chunk of engaging content will go well. As for the current customers, an individualized message pertaining their specific needs can be thrown to retain and pull them back in order to acquire a new product that entered your listings just recently.

What is smart content?
As HubSpot defines ‘smart content’, “content that is intelligently personalized to your customer’s needs”. Without needing to execute the ‘one-size-fits-all’ philosophy on a macro level on your customer base, building a smart content promotes the perception of different buyer personas, which in turn creates a communication that fits each customer’s needs and requirements individually.

Why should you create personalized messages? Because it drives a better performance!

HubSpot recently ran a survey that inspected the data of 93,000+ calls-to-action acquired from their platform over a 12-month duration. The result concluded that call-to-action directed to users did 42% better than generic call-to-actions.

Such results are enough to motivate brands into creating and sending personalized and customer-oriented messages. The move brings along a plethora of benefits for both the business and customers: providing customers precisely what they need, the brand is retained in the memory for significant information, and also importantly, enhancing lead conversions. The eventual reward is a long-lasting and healthy relationship with your customer. The numbers for personalized messaging speaks for themselves.

61% of customers rely more on a company that is inclined to create custom and individualized content. Hence, the probability to choose the same company for a future purchase is high.

88% of content marketing professionals are considering to add personalization elements in their plans.

Marco Maruccia Tip 3: The idea is self-explanatory: when brands tend to associate with people, it’s personal, so the personalization of your content makes sense too. It’s the most powerful way to reach your customers as intended and propel the desired conversions.

4- Raise a Team of Influencers [ambassadors] due to your positive reviews
Although there are various ways to achieve this, but the basic roadmap remains the same—acknowledging and providing the needs your customers are literally looking for. If you offer solutions that truly understand and solve their problem, then it becomes easy to make them more brand loyal. In order to genuinely acquire a team of influencers that could become an additional weapon in your arsenal of brand promotion and recognition, marketers first need to understand the benefits a group of influencers can provide action like a Snowball Effect! As stated above, if a customer is pleased with the performance of your brand, it’s nearly possible he/she will promote it in their circle and environment, whether at a workplace, a social gathering, an old friends gathering, on a social media platform, or even at a casino night. The point is to express your positive opinion and experiences regarding a brand to others you care about. Imagine a customer commenting something like,

“This app has made me fall in love with music all over again”, or “hey, did you see the launch of that new beautiful-looking Bleu de Chaufee bag?”

The message triggers a chain reaction, the satisfied customer will tell his/her friends, family and other people in the circle, the group will be impressed to try the brand themselves and spread the word further, and so the cycle continues and thrives. This indicates a snowball effect—what started with a minor state of significance, gradually rolled over to become a powerful influence in the form of pleased customers acting as dedicated promoters of your brand.

Marco Maruccia Tip 4: If you get a customer to love your brand, he/she can become the basis through which a positive word-of-mouth and brand awareness can be spread. Acquire maximum impact from your defined budget! Converting customers into mighty influencers is one of the most low budgets but indispensable way to encourage your brand recognition.

5- Invest & Convert in Data: the Right Data
If you have the right data, then a professional digital marketer can understand the exact customer behavior and what it takes to deliver the best efforts. Especially this year when the trend of providing real-time responses to consumers in growing increasingly crucial, associating the data with the right tools will be very vital.

Why is there a need for Big Data?

Big data is one of the most commonly heard terms in data management that comes with a number of questions. Due to the massive amount of data involved and its heavy emphasis on different digital marketing cultures like segment marketing, personalized marketing, native marketing, etc., its implementation into marketing strategies is quite complex and impossible to cover in brief.

Equipped with the right marketing arsenal, any digital marketing agency can utilize big data. Take the case of EGC Group for example, a top digital marketing agency excelled in big data science and management. EGC’s data states that even though a number of companies are using Google Analytics, they aren’t incorporating the data with marketing automation and CRM tools (Marketo, HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.). Here are some figures that help us understand the impact and increasing importance of big data trend that is likely to go strong in the coming years.

Highly data-oriented enterprises are 3 times more likely to improve their decision-making processes

Every 9 out of 10 owners feel their businesses have missed opportunities because sales agents were not able to make the most out of the information available in front of them

IDC forecasts for big data industry to reach around a worth of >2 billion by 2019

Marco Maruccia Tip 5: Data is the future and companies that invest in Data have got the advantages to clearly monitor the traffic & to identify the needs in the specific market. Data is like gold and will be a lot more powerful in 2018 !

Check this out: migration flow across the world!!!

http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=global-bilateral-migration

Happy Marketing Plans!

• Marketing plan 2018: Budget & integration of upcoming trends
• Marketing Trends 2017