At the Discover Martech Virtual Event, there was plenty of discussion on the future of marketing. It’s clear now that it will not be business as usual for marketers.
But then, it feels like marketing has been in a state of evolution for a while now. What does the future look like? Especially now that COVID-19 has seriously changed things?
Mark Bornstein, VP Marketing at ON24, offered some ideas in his session How COVID-10 Will Change the Future of Digital Marketing.
What does our current “normal” look like?
These things should ring true for most:
As Bornstein pointed out, there is even more pressure on marketers to drive the buyer’s journey and do it with fewer resources.
But for every bad thing, there is usually something good. In the case of COVID-19 and the requirement to stay at home (and stay safe), Bornstein pointed out that people are getting creative, and they are getting connected – more than ever before.
And because people are figuring out how to thrive in an almost entirely online world, their expectations towards a brand’s digital experience is also changing. It’s no longer about clicks, downloads, and impressions, Bornstein said. It’s about engagement. It’s about experiential marketing.
What is experiential marketing?
It doesn’t matter what channel you use to reach customers. It could be your website, webinars, curated content hubs, landing pages, or virtual environments – it is all about the experience and how you actively engage the customer.
What does that mean? Bornstein said it would look:
There will be no more one-off marketing channels; everything should lead to something else. There will be a lot of digital content in a single experience, where the customer can pick and choose what they want and the path they want to head.
Bornstein offered a few examples of how this will look.
Webinars: from presentations to programs
Think late-night talk shows, coffee breaks, and chats; the traditional ‘present a concept and show my application’ webinar is over. The next generation of webinar series are programs design to engage and encourage interaction, and people will want to subscribe or opt-in to receiving them regularly.
I think we are already moving in this direction with brands shows – podcasts and videos. And they are so much better than the traditional webinar series. A couple of examples I’ve seen: Wistia’s Brandwagon, The Weekly Wrap with Robert Rose, and 3 Clips with Jay Acunzo. Now, none of these shows are interactive, but they are a new and better way to share information with people. I expect we’ll see shows like this start to evolve to be more interactive with their audiences.
Events: from physical to digital
Digital events have been kind of boring – and many still are. But there’s a lot of room and capabilities available to improve them. As brands are forced to cancel their physical events or their presence at physical events, there is an opportunity to create a digital version that is equally engaging and interactive. The Discover Martech is a great example.
Bornstein talked about how these digital events are becoming multi-dimensional with things like greeter videos, keynotes, breakout sessions, panel discussions, social and gamification, open Q&A, and even swag and giveaways. Here on diginomica, Jon Reed has talked a lot about both virtual events and webinars and how things need to change.
Curated content experiences
Everyone talks about the Netflix model for creating personalized content experiences. I like Netflix, but it isn’t perfect (especially when your son goes in under your account). Bornstein said that we would start seeing lots of mini-Netflix experiences. These are smaller, more personalized, and targeted to very specific people.
Often called content hubs, you’ll see plenty of related content alongside featured content, all curated on-demand, and a few CTAs to let the visitor self-select where they want to go.
Personalized experiences
If you are looking for a way to replace nurture emails that don’t seem to work, creating personalized landing pages might be your answer. These aren’t your typical landing page with a single asset and CTA. Instead, personalized landing pages contain lots of curated, relevant content, and focus on a particular industry, use case, or account. Every interaction is trackable, and multiple CTAs allow the visitor to select where they want to go next.
It takes a village
You can take the expression “it takes a village to raise a child” and translate it into today’s marketing experiences like this: “it takes a multitouch content experience to convert a customer.”
Bornstein showed a SirusDecisions stat that said it takes between 11-17 interactions to enable a purchase. You can choose to create 11-17 discrete touchpoints and wait forever for that conversion to happen, but Bornstein said that you don’t want to do that. Instead, you want to build an experience that leads one interaction to the next and so on. He also said that the goal of each experience is to do stuff – interact, chat, download, etc.. And that sounds so much better than what marketers do today.