After you put away your holiday ornaments and clean up remnants the New Year’s Eve celebration, it’s time to look ahead to what 2017 will bring in PR and marketing.
Digital marketing promises to continue to change quickly. Technology advancements and social media trends will surely affect public relations and marketing tactics. Those who keep up with emerging technologies and techniques increase their chances of surviving and thriving in the New Year.
With that in mind, these are some of the top marketing and PR trends to expect.
Messaging apps. Messaging apps are becoming the new second home screen, says Kevin King, global practice chair of Edelman Digital.
“There’s a chatbot revolution going on, and it’s primarily being fueled by the adoption of chatbots by major social and messaging platforms. With billions of daily users of messaging apps, the platforms hope to enable marketers to scale creative 1-to-1 engagement opportunities called “conversational experiences,’” King writes for Ad Week.
Some people believe Chatbots will change how businesses communicate with customers. They may significantly impact public relations since chatbots will change how digital publishers distribute news. Savvy PR pros must anticipate and adapt to that changing media environment.
Virtual reality. Virtual reality will transition from the PR and marketing frontier to the mainstream. Marketing agencies only recently began to embrace the immersive 360-degree videos and the increasing acceptance of virtual reality will lead to growth of immersive content. Expect both significant improvements in virtual reality devices and software and for tech firms to promote the videos as culturally acceptable.
While the travel businesses first experimented with VR, brands outside that sector are exploring the tactic. PR pros may be nervous. Few have begun experimenting with the technology, while media outlets like The New York Times, with its Walking New York experience, and marketing agencies are forging ahead.
“VR is taking the world by storm, similar to what mobile did seven years ago,” Abi Mandelbaum, CEO of YouVisit, told the AP. “Virtual reality is the most realistic experience you can have of a place without being there. It’s powerful. It gets people excited and engaged and interested in having that experience in real life.” It’s a creative and useful technology for both PR and marketing.
Media measurement. Media measurement will gain greater acceptance. “Media measurement as we knew it is over,” says PR measurement expert Katie Paine, CEO of Paine Publishing. “In 2017 we will be sticking a fork into the old days of measuring communications via placements, column inches, impressions and, God forbid, AVEs. New tools like Glean.info and Proof and the incorporation of digital metrics in traditional media measurement systems have made obsolete the old, single-channel metrics.”
New media monitoring tools allow you to easily evaluate all your reach in both traditional and social media and easily examine how your media activities impact conversions on your website, activity in your CRM system or other business goals. “There are lots of ways you can gain an understanding of your PR content’s effectiveness, and you can use a customizable analytics template to track and measure your successes,” agrees John Hall, CEO of Influence & Co.
In 2017, measurement becomes mandatory.
Data analytics. Data analytics will become a priority in both PR and marketing. Demand for data analytics skills, already in high gear, will increase. Industry experts anticipate a growing shortage PR and marketers with strong data analytics skills.
Although PR executives remain generally optimistic, they will find recruiting personnel with solid analytical acumen increasingly challenging. PR will turn more to research and analytics departments, as well as advertising and marketing, to find talent to fill its analytics needs.
“A good data analyst can dive in and learn more about your customers in four weeks than you may know after 12 months on the job,” Paine says. “Increasingly the open slots in communications departments are going to data analysts.”
Influencer marketing. Influencer marketing will mature. More brands will recognize the substantial limitations of traditional paid advertising and partner with social media influencers. Expect more co-creating of original content, more relationships with micro-influencers, and greater emphasis on measurement as marketers feel pressured to demonstrate results. Marketers typically measure success through audience reach, but that metric can be easily falsified through fake followers and false clicks.
Instead of measuring only reach, savvy marketers will examine the entire consumer journey toward purchase. Quantitative metrics, like cost per engagement, sales and revenue lift, will become critical to justify growing budgets for influencer marketing.
Bottom Line: Sharp PR and marketing professionals will closely watch these important trends in 2017. As the digital marketing landscape continues to evolve, PR and marketing teams must adapt to survive and triumph.
William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.
