Technology has reshaped marketing by personalizing and immersing campaigns for consumers, and integrating and targeting marketing ecosystems for marketers. And it’s not only the brand-to-person interface that’s changed; apart from offering value to procurement, new marketing technology has entered firms’ infrastructure and systems.
Close to 10 years ago, 47% of US marketers highlighted creativity as a driving force in their marketing approach. In 2021, that figure was 29 percent. Creativeness and technology will be equally important in 2022 for 56% of marketers. 30% will put technology ahead of creativity.
Here are some of the reasons behind these trends:
Technology helps you establish a closer relationship with your clients
Marketers have long sought to understand what goes on in the minds of their customers. Thanks to technological advancements, you now have an infinite number of ways to learn. Technology enables you to communicate with, talk to, and engage your customers more than ever before. You can hold one-on-one conversations with your clients via social media and provide a more tailored experience across different devices.
In fact, the primary objective of technology in marketing is to assist marketers in better understanding customer preferences, behavior, and purchasing trends and build the most effective marketing plan based on this intelligence.
Studies show that marketers will be highly regarded for their understanding of the technology realm just as much as they will be for their expertise in public relations and marketing in the future.
And so, marketing success will depend on your ability to leverage mobile as the customer’s preferred mode of consumption; how you analyze Big Data and extract everything relevant to your business.
Also, your ability to use social media to listen and have more meaningful conversations result in more pleased customers. And lastly, how you leverage the cloud, which is rapidly becoming the hub of marketing automation. As such, integrating technology will play an integral role to your marketing, and subsequently your business’ success.
Marketing isn’t marketing if it doesn’t use technology.
If marketing truly is about designing and implementing customer experiences, as it is, then software provides the foundation for customer-centric marketing tactics. You can use tools, software, and new technology to create new methods to engage clients.
With interconnected devices, and user-generated content along with social interactions taking place over smartphones, tablets, and computers, the internet is quickly becoming a living object, giving directions, proposing lunch ideas problems, and doing a plethora of other human-like activities.
The good news is that you can use a partnership tracker to keep track of all of these consumer activities. For example, utilizing tracking technology, you can track conversions, identify users across multiple platforms, and obtain comprehensive insights into customer activity, preferences, likes, etc.
You don’t have to do all the hard work—surveying, speculating, and researching, among others. An AI can deliver all the information you need to make informed decisions about your service or product offerings.
Virtual reality improves the user experience.
Imagine how interactive it would be for prospective customers to try out your services or products before buying? Brands and organizations have taken it a step further by providing virtual reality experiences to their customers, and so should you!
Audi, for example, has already begun to leverage this technology to provide a better customer experience. In Norway, they’re allowing their users to drive their new Audi Q5 in a massive virtual sandbox, delivering a real-time driving experience. Undoubtedly, doing so enhances their marketing strategy’s effectiveness and uniqueness!
It’s worth noting that virtual reality can help you learn about your customers’ perceptions of your products before they’re manufactured or even launched. This should help you decide whether to increase or decrease production.
In conclusion
The internet is mighty, and as a marketer, you must harness its power if you want to develop long-term relationships with your clients.
Please don’t listen to old-school marketers who are perhaps unfamiliar with software and the internet and may lack professional intuition to harness or handle it all. Don’t overlook new marketing channels or opportunities that come along with technology integration—such as the ability to track your customer’s movements. Remember this: technology is not just a tiny bit of marketing; it is everything.