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How digital media is delivered and received by consumers will continue to evolve in 2019. Privacy will be an even bigger issue for audiences. More publicity around Facebook and Google about how individuals are targeted, how their information is shared (and sold), and how they believe they are being manipulated will continue to take a toll on their online behavior. Amazon’s entrance to the digital media market will only compound these concerns.

To give a little bit of context, according to eMarketer, more than $46 billion was to be spent on programmatic advertising in the United States by the end of 2018, an increase exceeding 33 percent – or about $10 billion more than 2017. More than four-out-of-five digital display ads in this country will be bought via automated channels.

However, issues of consumer privacy are changing online behavior, as individuals move away from banner ads that follow them from site-to-site. Already, we have seen click-through rates from banner ads plummet. We expect consumers in 2019 not only to shy away even farther from banner ads but also to enlist ad blockers to keep them out altogether. As a result, marketing campaigns will move to other more strategic platforms, and especially to LinkedIn for its content and influencer marketing programs.

This mostly will be fine with many brands, as transparency into the media-purchasing process becomes more of an issue. It is almost impossible with digital ads to verify how many dollars in media spend are going to ad inventory versus overhead. This is new to digital media, as print and broadcast ads can be seen and evaluated. In addition, the negative publicity about brands whose ads show up on controversial websites will also drive marketers to other digital media approaches.

According to eMarketer, of the nearly $19 billion in additional ad dollars that will be spent on programmatic display between 2018 and 2020, most will be targeted to private setups such as private marketplaces (PMPs) and programmatic direct transactions. Platforms such as LinkedIn may be more expensive than online display, but that price comes with the confidence that it is being spent on the right audiences who aren’t blocking them.

Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of the top marketing trends for 2019.

Today’s consumer landscape is getting personal, which is why personalization is becoming an important marketing boost for brands. Between ad-blindness and jargon atrophy, we are all tired of generic campaigns attempting to target everyone. We want to feel special. We want to feel heard. This is why marketers in the digital landscape are headstrong on finding new and exciting ways to create campaigns and digital platforms that serve content specific to an individual’s interests.

The Race Is On. Marketers overwhelmingly agree that personalization is a huge benefit for developing and maintaining customer relationships, and nearly 90 percent recognize that their target audiences expect a personalized experience. Two-thirds of consumers say they will switch to brands that treat them like an individual rather than a data point, a trend that will continue to be driven by younger audiences who value brands that are transparent, authentic, and personal. At the same time, marketers know that their efforts at personalization have not kept up with customer demands. They are not satisfied with their current efforts and have low confidence in their ability to achieve successful personalization.

So what change is happening to boost marketers’ confidence in 2019?

Overwhelming Data. Let’s start with the root of the problem. The primary reason for falling behind in the race to personalize platforms does not come from a lack of creative personalization ideas. 2019’s copywriters and UX designers are poised and ready to unleash catchier content, worthwhile CTA buttons, and engaging storytelling experiences on the relevant user. Instead, the problem lies with the struggle to harness infinite user information, across multiple data platforms, into one cohesive customer profile. The solution to this marketing hurdle lies in finding an easier way to cultivate all of the customer data together, including tracking customer journeys and linking data and insights across the web, mobile, email, and social channels.

On average, marketers within companies store their customer data in at least four different systems, most of which are not shared or have no way to make meaningful connections. Dramatic investments are in store for whatever integration, platform, or process can unite the omnichannel user data and enhance data analysis. With this precise-user understanding at marketers’ fingertips, we enjoy the familiarity of personalized campaigns. With this solution still on the horizon, here are some trends happening in the meantime.

Email Is Still Mail. Let’s face it, our inboxes aren’t overflowing with personal communications from friends and loved ones. That doesn’t mean email marketing has to be impersonal. So how do we get a user to click on that one email subject line when they return from vacation to a mailbox full of ads? Personalize your headline copy, customize imagery by location, gender, or season, and insert dynamic CTAs to make the offer relate to what you know about them. Make it pop!

Introduce a Unique Digital Experience. Transforming your online offer to something more personally tangible is not as easy as it sounds. Take, for example, a recent frustration the Graduate Management Admission Council was having with engaging with prospective MBA students on its microsite, CallingAllOptimists.com. While the site looked nice, it lacked the functional depth to gather useful data from its audiences. However an introduction of a personalized 4-question quiz resonated with the site’s traffic on a more personal level, successfully capturing usable data from audiences to improve future marketing endeavors. Taking the quiz and getting their personal Action Report, the user exits the experience with satisfaction as their need was addressed, and continued their relationship by opting-in to an email-nurture campaign. The quiz seamlessly guided the user to customize messaging and content based on their answers, while simultaneously gathering actionable insight which integrated directly to GMAC’s marketing automation platform. Not only did this redesign improve the campaign’s functionality and awareness – it created a holistic brand ecosystem which drove both the user and the client to their desired goal.

You’re on the Right Landing Page. Let’s say you’ve finally convinced the user to engage with your content and click on the CTA button, you know you have their full attention. Making a personalized first impression when they arrive on the landing page both affirms they are in the right place and encourages them to remain there. In the above CallingAllOptimists case study, the media campaign was designed to match the messaging that worked in the first place to pull double-duty by complementing the interest on the landing page. Driving the target audience to the site, the user is met with a unique welcome message in the hero-zone correlated to the specific ad they engaged with.

Empathetic Marketing. No matter the tactic, the fundamental purpose of personalizing any campaign is to boost engagement by telling the user you understand their need. Communicating your own message by listening to their needs first will always prove to be worth the research, planning, and testing effort. Delighting the modern consumer is going to take some analytics-grit, but doing your marketing homework before investing in any large personalization initiative will pay off in 2019.

Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of the top marketing trends for 2019.

The past few years have seen exponential growth when it comes to influencer marketing as part of modern marketing strategies. It is evolving at the speed of light and shows no sign of slowing down. In 2017, the industry was worth just $2 billion but is set to reach $10 billion by 2020. Influencer marketing is changing the way marketers reach out to their audiences and the expectations that consumers have for these campaigns. The reason is simple: According to Ion, not only do 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations, but 40% had purchased something after seeing it on Twitter, YouTube or Instagram. As a result, for every dollar spent on influencer campaigns, brands can expect a more than six-fold return.

The trick to a successful influencer marketing campaign is to retain the credibility, authority, and authenticity of these social marketing strategies. Modern-day heroes, including sports stars and celebrities, can reach large audiences with their endorsements or recommendations and can bring those key attributes to their followers. In fact, influencers who are able to build strong audiences with their fans are able to gain three times as many views, twice as many actions, and twelve times as many comments compared to videos from traditional celebrities.

Influencers who have thousands, as opposed to millions, of followers are becoming an even bigger asset for many campaigns because they are viewed as more authentic due to their smaller, more intimate audiences. Acknowledging their connection to their sponsors actually serves to build trust and transparency. While it can be argued that having to use #ad or #sponsor on posts will make the ads less effective because the audience knows the influencer is promoting a company’s product, the counterargument is that brands will actually be promoting trust with their audience.

Video is another great way to bolster influencer strategies, as it can be far more engaging than images. Additionally, because more and more Internet users are installing traditional ad blockers – 40% on laptops and 15% on mobile – videos are a key way to get an ad across to users. People don’t block videos from their favorite social media celebrities – in fact, they’re completely engaged in what they have to say. Advertising power is shifting to real people and influencers. Whether it’s on Facebook Live, Snapchat Stories or Instagram Stories, video content is going to have the highest impact of content that you and your influencer can create for your audience.

Bluetext has found great success when it comes to engaging in influencer marketing strategies. Built With Chocolate Milk, an organization that promotes the benefits of chocolate milk as a natural recovery drink, partnered with Bluetext to improve the site’s consumer digital experience through a website redesign that emphasizes the science-backed benefits of chocolate milk. A key way of doing this? Leveraging impressive partnerships with world-class athletes such as Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors.

It’s no question that social media has become a major element in our lives and gives a chance for “normal” people to build their own brands by promoting and engaging with content. With the rise of influencer marketing, companies no doubt have an opportunity to leverage these tactics to more effectively sell their products and solutions.

Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of the top marketing trends for 2019.

A new trend in progressive enterprise organizations is the rise of the CIO. No, not the Chief Information Officer, but the Chief Innovation Officer, charged with ensuring that idea-driven companies produce both customer-facing products and services as well as internal efficiency. For a brand’s marketing team, this means a new opportunity to incorporate the latest technologies and digital strategies into the marketing and communications programs that can take that organization to the next level.

The modern business environment is being propelled by startups, alongside small and mid-sized businesses who have the capacity to stay nimble and pivot amidst constant change. Large organizations on the other hand function more like monolithic battleships, that struggle to change direction as the seas of global markets shift. By failing to adapt away from business-as-usual, these companies will fail to execute enterprise-wide digital transformations when their markets, offerings, and landscapes shift. To keep up with the competitive digital marketing marketplace, that approach needs to move towards a culture of innovation.

Challenges CIOs Face

Even companies progressive enough to hire a Chief Innovative Officer experience difficulty incorporating the innovations they are brought aboard to spur. One of these challenges is that many organizations are worn out from optimistic promises of “digital transformation.” Upon entering their new roles, CIOs have found challenges receiving budget sponsorship from CEOs and advisory boards who do not want to undergo long holds in productivity for a comprehensive IT overhaul when rapid-fire business disruption is the norm.

What CIOs and organizations alike must realize is that change will come, but it will not happen overnight. These transformations will occur at a slower, more iterative pace, with the CIO being the champion advocate for how these transformations will lead to results.

For marketers, that means a strategy that begins to scope out results on a 12- to 24-month innovation cycles instead of the 5- to 7-year epic journeys digital transformations of the past. This may not be as fast as organizations desire (since most of us are used to two-day shipping and instant gratification shopping for new purchases), however taking a long view on steering the ship in the right direction can help organizations and their CIOs realize success in moving massive organizations toward higher-level goals.

Rethinking ROI

CIOs often have large ambitions for massive transformations – and rightly so. As always, these dreams must be balanced with a slice of reality in knowing that all organizational results are measured on how they affect the bottom line. However, rethinking Return on Investment will help stagnant organizations regain their positions on the cutting edge. One way of doing this is to measure business transformation and ranking digital technologies by their larger benefit to the organization, or a “Return on Innovation.” This measure-heavy approach will place additional emphasis on digital KPIs, thereby restoring value in smaller, periodic results over time.

This agile approach is proliferating through business environments, as companies begin to realize well-founded success is built on the sum of quality parts. For example, if you were to build a boat, you wouldn’t push to make all of the different parts of the boat at the same time. You would build it piece by piece, making sure each was quality to ensure that the boat was fortified enough to stay afloat for a long time. CIOs must take this iterative approach if they want to build real change in large organizations.

Sailing Into the Future
The new breed of CIO will ultimately help steer these massive ships toward a prosperous future, by breaking them free of the grooves they have dug themselves into. Organizations are often rooted in outdated methodologies which prevent acceleration toward organizational goals, and it is the responsibility of this new Chief Innovation Officer role to turn the ship in the right direction. Marketing professionals can help push organizations into helping steer the ship towards where they need to be in the market – with the most innovative approaches that are supported across the C-suite.

Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of the top marketing trends for 2019.

For our final post to end the year and look forward to 2019, let’s turn to the marketing component that is perhaps undergoing the most significant transition: Public Relations. PR was once universally recognized as the bread and butter for communications activities, the core element of any marketing program. That’s no longer the case, as publications that a generation ago would readily cover almost any technology pitch have seen their print ads shrink. As a result, they have drastically cut back on reporters and news coverage as they scramble to define their business models in the digital age.

As a result, public relations firms are having to work harder to create their own opportunities to get coverage for their clients. Instead of a reporter writing on a topic, editors now ask for submitted bylines that they can print – which makes perfect sense, since that’s free content that agencies are providing on behalf of their clients.

Public relations, as a practice, is in need of a significant overhaul. Media relations is not simply a subset of PR, which must focus on a much broader range of channels to reach prospects and customers. This means that influencer marketing, paid content, submitted bylines, content syndicators, specialty websites, and even trade associations must now be part of the outreach mix. It’s not enough to rely purely on earned coverage – practitioners must look for new, creative ways to get their messages out to core audiences.

Some of this is self-preservation. As the economy slows, PR is the first marketing practice to take the hit.

Here is what see as the most important public relations trends for 2019:

Influencer Marketing is on the Rise. Identifying, engaging, and recruiting influencers who have their own followers will be the biggest change for 2019. Understanding which ones have the most valuable followers will be a challenge requiring more sophisticated social measurement tools. Learning how to pitch influencers will mean a steep learning curve, as many influencers try to figure out their value in the market and on the social media channels where they thrive.

Public Relations Must Drive Better Content. Instead of drafters of press releases for clients, PR agencies must evolve into content providers that know how to produce rich, graphical content that can attract attention. Visual assets – which require a creative team in addition to media relations experts – will be essential to delivering content that can be quickly posted for key audiences to see.

Building Relationships. Press releases will still serve a purpose – sometimes a legal requirement and other times as a shorthand tool for reporters. But more important for PR agencies is the ability to build relationships with target audiences across multiple channels. Social media will play a part, but so will communications to targets through a regular cadence of outreach that includes emails, eNewsletters, blog posts, and other content formats.

Blurring the Line. The once-thick-but-now-fine line between public relations and marketing will continue to blur. Long-form client-generated content is getting more popular for several reasons. First, you control every word and don’t have to worry about lousy quotes, misinformation, or competitors being included higher up in the article. Second, publishers are desperately trying to find new revenue streams, so they will continue to push paid native advertising as a way to reach customers and generate more cash. And third, customers would rather hear from experts within companies than reporters who most likely are not as technically proficient.

It’s All About the Metrics. The impact and value of earned media have traditionally been difficult to measure. Agencies must go beyond the typical share of voice, reach and ad value equivalency metrics to include more useful tools that connect the audience with actions. One start-up described in a recent Wall Street Journal article has created a service to measure readership information of articles that specifically mention brands. Look for more analytics tools from Google and other platforms that can connect more of the communications software stacks together for a better look at how prospects are reacting to PR campaigns.

These are all pretty big changes in how we approach the public relations programs we deliver for our clients. Making the shift won’t be easy, but it’s essential to drive results.

Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of the top marketing trends for 2019.

No look at top marketing trends would be complete without considering the look and feel of a brand: the colors it uses, how the logo is displayed, and the tone and personality it conveys. They all can play a large role in how it is perceived and received by its target audiences. In Part Five of Top Marketing Trends series, we have identified six key directions to keep an eye out for in 2019 when it comes to the visual identities that brands are moving towards in the market.

Bold Typography. Look for bigger and bolder designs in 2019. Extra-large font sizes, hefty headlines, and interesting artistic effects will be more common. While sans-serif font types have been a dominating factor in font styles, expect more of those in the Helvetica family, especially the extra-bold variations.
Authentic Photography. Stock photography is getting old and tired. The same smiling perfect faces in gleaming sterile office settings doesn’t look like anything most audiences can relate to or engage with. Real photography through custom shoots will be in more demand. Images services will meet this demand with more photo libraries of authentic images that convey emotion or tell a story.
Custom Illustrations. Like with photography, look for more custom illustrations that add personality and a little whimsy to a brand’s website and collateral. Look for more creativity and less formality in a broader range of styles as designers stretch their palette with these underused assets. Classic design techniques such as double-exposures and duotones are both re-emerging as modern trends.
Movement and Animation. “Microinteractions” are one of the newest directions in brand design, and they are generating a lot of buzz already for 2019. Put simply, these are tiny animations used to help target audiences to perform tasks more simply and easily. These are now being widely used as a key UX design trend, and they are especially helpful in providing feedback for their actions. GIFs and SVGs can convey ideas, concepts, and processes, while making content engaging for audiences. They add more interest to emails, banner ads, social media, and even icons and logos.
Gradients. The use of gradients by a brand was visible on every website button, page header, and PowerPoint deck in the earlier days of digital marketing. That all changed in favor of more flat designs; you can follow the history of the Google logo for a true chronology of this trend. But gradients are back, so expect to see them in vibrant branding, illustrations, and backgrounds as well as overlays. We’re also seeing an increased use of the term “color transitions” when referring to gradients.
Responsive Logos. Our top marketing trend for 2019 is around a brand’s logo. Responsive techniques for website design came on slowly, but they have more recently become a best practice and an industry standard. With mobile accounting for a greater and greater share of online traffic, it’s no surprise that brands need better ways to show off their logos even on small screens. Applying responsive designs to logos is the next step in this process. Look for this as a major brand trend in 2019.

Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of the top marketing trends for 2019.

For part four of our Top Marketing Trends 2019 series, we now turn to digital media campaigns and trends that we expect to see in 2019 based on what we are seeing today. Privacy, transparency, and confidence will have a significant impact on how digital media is leveraged for successful campaigns in the coming year.

How digital media is delivered and received by consumers will continue to evolve in 2019. Privacy will be an even bigger issue for audiences; more publicity around Facebook and Google about how individuals are targeted, how their information is shared (and sold), and how they believe they are being manipulated will continue to take a toll on their online behavior. Amazon’s entrance to the digital media market will only compound these concerns.

To give a little bit of context, according to eMarketer, more than $46 billion will be spent on programmatic advertising in the United States by the end of 2018, an increase exceeding 33 percent – or about $10 billion more than last year. More than four-out-of-five digital display ads in this country will be bought via automated channels.

However, issues of consumer privacy are changing online behavior, as individuals move away from banner ads that follow them from site-to-site. Already, we have seen click-through rates from banner ads plummet. We expect consumers in 2019 not only to shy away even further from banner ads but also to enlist ad blockers to keep them out altogether. As a result, marketing campaigns will move to other more strategic platforms, and especially to LinkedIn for its content and influencer marketing programs.

This will be mostly fine with many brands, as transparency into the media-purchasing process becomes more of an issue. It is almost impossible with digital ads to verify how many dollars in media spend are going to ad inventory versus overhead. This is new to digital media, as print and broadcast ads can be seen and evaluated. In addition, the negative publicity about brands whose ads show up on controversial websites will also drive marketers to other digital media approaches.

Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of the top marketing trends for 2019.

As part three of our Top Marketing Trends 2019 series, with this post, we are focusing on the look and usability of one a brand’s most valuable marketing and revenue asset – the website. Here are our top website design trends for 2019, culled from our insights into the market, feedback from clients, and discussions with top marketing industry experts.

Expect a bold new look from many top brands. Bright colors are in because of its ability to draw attention quickly. And in today’s crowded online market, the competition is fierce to stand out from the crowd. Beyond its power to stand out, brands are more willing to be seen as a bold organization. As a result, we are seeing more clients wanting to boldly take risks with color variations, blends, and saturation.
Typography will follow this trend. Look for bolder typography with large fonts that dominate the page. Expect to see less of the cursive style and thin lines, and more fonts that allow letters to clear, obvious, and thick. Brands will be better able to express themselves with a bolder style.
Look for more custom illustrations. It’s hard to stand out from your competitors when everyone is using similar stock photos. Customers gravitate towards brands that are authentic and appear confident in the market, and stock photos are neither. Customer illustrations give a brand a platform to express itself, tell its story and differentiate itself in the market.
Integrated animations will help improve navigation. This trend will continue at high speed in 2019. Also called micro-animations, these features can both grab users attention and guide them on their journey through the website by showing them that they are in the right place and that they’ve taken the intended action.
Mobile first design. Okay, we’ve been saying this for several years now, but it’s even more important. According to a recent report from Google, “Every day, people are becoming more reliant on their smartphones to help make last-minute purchases or spur-of-the-moment decisions. In fact, smartphone users are 50% more likely to expect to purchase something immediately while using their smartphone compared to a year ago.”

Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of the top marketing trends for 2019.

We recently launched our Top Marketing Trends 2019 series, that will take a close look at what digital marketers should expect for next year. We started with privacy because of a sea change in consumer attitudes about their online privacy over the past 18 months – much of it the result of huge changes in policy around the world, like the European Union’s GDPR requirements, as well as data breaches that put a massive number of Americans at risk. In our post last week, we dove into what GDPR means for marketers here in the U.S.

In today’s post, we will examine changes resulting from Facebook’s sale of its data to Cambridge Analytica, which used the information on Facebook users for controversial political targeting. Why is this a top marketing trend for 2019? Because the realization of how social media platforms like Facebook are using consumer information has had a significant impact on Facebook’s users and financial status, a trend that will extend to other social media outlets in the coming year.

Here are out three key takeaways from the Facebook fiasco that will have a significant impact on digital marketers:

The challenge with marketers who want to leverage platforms like Facebook to reach their target audiences is that the social media companies themselves are just now putting in place consumer safeguards about how their data is being used- in the face of serious public and political pressure. We all know that consumers want an easy experience when looking to research or purchase on the internet, which is what we marketers want, as well. Now that consumers see that this convenience comes at a cost, they want more control over how their personal information is used.

Our first takeaway for 2019: There’s a big difference between serving the consumer’s interest and using that same data when it doesn’t benefit that individual. Our recommendation is to take a close review of how you use your customer data and make sure it actually serves the customer.

Another challenge is expectations. Having a privacy policy at the bottom of your website, filled with unintelligible legalese that no consumer is ever going to read or understand, isn’t going to be enough. That CYA language needs to become useful.

Our second takeaway for 2019: Give visitors to your website real choices that they can understand over how their information is used. One idea that is making headway is having a privacy dashboard that is readily accessed by visitors, where they can make their own decisions about their data.

Finally, we all need to know who we are dealing with when it comes to third-party vendors. The issue with Cambridge Analytics was not simply that Facebook was providing data to an outside entity – after all, that is its business model, and in our opinion, there is nothing wrong with that when used appropriately. The scandal was that the outside firm was using the data for ways that Facebook users would never have sanctioned – to influence how they vote in elections.

Our third takeaway for 2019: Make sure you know your partners, including data brokers and ad buyers, and exactly what they are doing with the information. Ask them if they are acquiring personal data without the user’s permission. It won’t be enough to claim ignorance about your third-party vendors.

In our next post on top marketing trends 2019, we’ll look at website design and build, and what to expect next year.

Learn how Bluetext can help you make the most of the top marketing trends for 2019.

In our previous blog post, we discussed how top marketing firms take a disciplined approach to digital campaigns in order to measure, analyze, and optimize results throughout the campaign. In this post, we will talk about our process of how top marketing firms invest time and energy into the creative approach that needs to grab audiences’ attention in order to convert them into a customer.

At Bluetext, we believe that great creative approaches come from an organized process that brings in fresh minds that work across different agency disciplines. First and foremost, we go beyond the client team to engage in an agency-wide brainstorm, often getting the best ideas from colleagues who may not have ever touched the particular client. But we don’t just through them in a room and ask them to come up with great ideas. Instead, we rely on the initial team members to prepare a thorough creative brief based on the in-depth discovery that begins our process.

That brief will be based on a number of research elements, including:

The key target audiences, including what is likely to motivate them to take action and engage with the campaign.
The campaign’s top messaging. What do we want to get across to the target audiences that will get them to pay attention?
Any available market research. What’s already out there to help us design the campaign, and is there additional research that needs to take place?
The competitive landscape. What are the messages that competitors are using, and what creative are they using in their marketing?
The client’s attitude towards the campaign. How innovative or clever is the client willing to be in this campaign? Does it need to be a conservative approach, or can something a little more edgy we acceptable?

This brief provides our team members with the guidance they need to start thinking about a creative approach that will succeed for our campaigns without reinventing the wheel or sending them down a path that we already know will not be effective.

In our next post, we will explore some recent creative examples that bring this approach altogether as part of the process that top marketing firms employ to achieve success for their clients.