Digital has been revolutionizing marketing in a never seen before way. Marketing is about strategic selling, getting your things to people who need it or will need it. Digital is facilitating just that, it is helping marketing reach the right people at the right time and tap into the right sentiment of the target audience. Especially with big data and analytics marketing is growing out of its cocoon of generalization and stepping into broader horizons of personalization. Digital is also enabling marketing to reach customers via a zillion different mediums and integration is keeping it seamless. So, where is the digital wave going to land the marketing boat in 2017? Let’s take a look at what’s hot in marketing analytics trends for 2017.

Growth of IOT and Customer Data Analytics

Think analytics, think sources of data. Think sources of data think devices. Think devices and we have connected things. The more channels you have, the more information you get about the customer which leads to more scope to apply analytics. From connected devices, to buildings to vehicles, IOT is growing everyday opening sources of information about individuals. The marketers’ job of getting to know the customers get easier, at the same time the need to apply analytics to fish out the desired information increases. Gartner forecasts that the usage of connected things will reach 20.8 billion by 2020, so the application of customer data analytics to a growing number of information channels will continue to be a trend for a long time to come.

Selling with Social Media Analytics

Social media will be used for selling rather than marketing. Retailers are already selling products directly on Facebook, where you can place an order and can pay as well. Since Facebook has enabled payment methods there are all the facilities of an ecommerce site, there is no reason to just limit its use to marketing. With social media analytics, marketers understand the choices of customers. Using that information, instead of displaying advertisement which will require the customer to go to another browser and open a new webpage, they can suggest Facebook pages from where they can directly buy products. Most people will prefer to select and buy from a Facebook store, instead of having to do it all over again. Various Facebook store solutions (like Shopify) are available to help retailers set up the stores and start selling. Starbucks, Urban Outfitters and even entertainment franchise like Gray’s Anatomy have Facebook stores.

 

Increase of Explanatory Analytics

More and more people are realizing that explanatory analytics is the next step to predictive analytics. Explanatory analytics is becoming inevitable for reaching better business decisions in case the market scenario changes. While predictive analytics tells you what is likely to happen if the present scenario continues, explanatory analytics explains what will be the outcome if the scenario does change. This enables to plan marketing strategies which are less likely to fail in case of market fluctuations.

Focus on Customer Experience

Gartner predicts that by 2018, most of the world’s largest 200 companies will utilize big data and analytics tools to refine their offers and improve customer experience. No matter what you are trying to sell, how many channels you have, seamless customer experience is the key to success in today’s competitive market. Use of analytics to understand customer interactions and to increase the efficacy of customer touchpoints will keep on increasing with time.

Use of AI for Marketing Analytics

From which food your customer likes, to what about your products and services they dislike the most, the Chatbot or virtual assistant knows it all, it is the new marketer. With advanced machine learning, artificial intelligence is collecting more information directly from customers than any survey ever can. Gartner predicts that by 2020 almost 100 million consumers will shop in augmented reality. Marketing analytics would gain a lot more insights from these virtual friends.

Real Time Analytics to gain more ground

Dependence on real time analytics would increase immensely. With real time recommendations, geo targeted promotional and individualized marketing people are getting used to real time more every day. The emphasis is going to continue with cut throat competition. Thanks to beacons and sensors, if you don’t have a real time marketing plan cut out for your customer, your competitor will.

Advertisement Analytics giveaways

Gartner predicts that ad blocking will actually increase advertising effectiveness by 50% by 2019. Shocking as it may sound, it is interesting to see how analytics can turn a negative thing into something positive. Analyzing the blocking pattern, marketers can better deliver products and ideas which will not be blocked if advertised. This will increase chances of earning more customers with the right marketing. In an era when marketing is armed with advanced analytics and has help in guise of intelligent apps there is scope to create a stronger strategy. The need of the hour is better in depth analytics rather than just based on metrics like FB likes or tweets and shares. Aligning CMO (Chief marketing officer) with IT and Marketing Technologist will help create an infrastructure that yields more power to influence the customers.

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