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Marketing has brought about some of the most innovative thinking made by human beings. Back in the day, the ‘soap opera’ was the digital equivalent of a Facebook ad. By placing products in much-loved TV shows, marketers got the mass audience reach needed to create a well-known brand.

The 21st century has given us new digital ways to enhance the same mind-maps that create recognizably trusted brands. Digital marketing is a holistic platform, encapsulating all forms of digital media, including social, email, mobile, and online. Out of the TV product placement of old, marketing has evolved to serve an online audience, creating data-driven digital collateral using powerful technologies like artificial intelligence and augmented reality.

The Evolution of Digital Marketing

Marketing has co-evolved alongside its technology counterparts. Consumers have embraced new technologies and platforms like social media and in doing so are creating parallel marketing practices. In a survey by DigitasLBI they found that 94% of shoppers bought a product using a mobile device.

Five Marketing Trends to Watch in 2018

Engaging effectively with a customer is a nuanced and multi-faceted problem. Social engagement and a more educated audience, have created a more sophisticated set of customer expectations. Customers now expect interesting marketing campaigns that include everything from simple fun to more socially aware and utilitarian product positioning. The use of digital marketing gives us the tools to flatten the matrix. Ph.D. Professor of Digital Marketing and co-director of the MSc in Digital Marketing & Data Science at emlyon business school Margherita Pagani proposes to look at five of the latest marketing trends.

#1 Augmented reality

With AR, consumers receive an augmented view of a product that gives it more depth and reality. For example, Ikea has created an AR version of their catalog. Ikea’s AR mobile app allows a customer to place furniture within their own home context to see how it looks.

#2 Artificial Intelligence and Big Data

Data gives the marketer the tools to deliver the right message, at the right time, to the right person. Marketers have always used data as the backbone of their business. But artificial intelligence, data analytics, and big data are taking data-driven marketing to a new level of effectiveness. Big data and AI allow the marketer to build more precise profiles of customers. The precision offered by using AI can provide better customer insights and so improved engagement and retention rates.

#3 Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM)

This new form of identity management has been developed with the marketer in mind. It offers a platform that can coordinate a customer's digital identity with services and data. A CIAM platform can be used to build data-driven and trusted relationships between the customer and the service, and marketers can use these data to create highly personalized brand experiences.  In a report by Salesforce into the trends of global marketing leaders, they found that the highest performing marketing teams used a CIAM approach.

#4 Privacy and the GDPR

Customer privacy has come into the spotlight with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR sets out a legal framework for the protection of personal data. And, it impacts marketers greatly. Digital marketing relies heavily on personal data. If you collect and process personal data you will need to make sure you comply with the GDPR.

#5 Mobile apps

As mentioned earlier, mobile is the shoppers choice. It makes sense, then, to use it as a platform for marketing and customer engagement. In Q4 of 2017, Facebook received 89% of advertising revenue from mobile. Mobile apps are a force of engagement for customers and need to be integrated into all of the areas mentioned here. ASOS are using mobile apps to create a great customer experience.

These five trends may seem separate, but they can be used together as part of the whole customer experience. Ultimately, marketing is about understanding and applying human behavior. Paying attention to the customer experience and engaging them as part of the brand family, will reap rewards in customer brand affection, attachment and increase the chances of them clicking the ‘buy’ button.

emlyon business school’s MSc in Digital Marketing & Data Science has been designed with this evolution in marketing in mind. The program works at the cutting edge of this new marketing paradigm, to teach you about the latest in digital marketing and data science allowing you to become a new generation marketer. The course is headed by Margherita Pagani Ph.D. Professor of Digital Marketing and Clement Levallois Associate Professor.