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Some market trends of 2010 and 2011

Some market trends of 2010 and 2011

Abstract

With the year 2010 year coming to an end let us see what trends have dominated the marketing world, In this article I have highlighted some trends that were anticipated by experts in the year 2010 and some anticipated trends of the year 2011.

 

2010 was an exciting year for marketers; trends that have been taking shape over the course of the past decade have created new opportunities for business owners. The first 10 years of the 21st century brought economic problems, corporate collapses and environmental disasters, but it was also a decade defined by a shift in communications from traditional media to a worldwide conversation that flows faster and farther than anyone could have imagined. Thanks to the tools of the social web, such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, online video and so on, news and information travels instantaneously, and that means marketers have new and exciting opportunities to reach consumers.

 

With those economic, cultural, political and environmental events, as well as the advances in technology and the global online conversation in mind, following are 10 trends that affected all areas of marketing, from advertising to branding and everything in between, and shaped marketing strategy throughout 2010 and beyond.

 

 

Transparency and trust are paramount.

Consumers have lived through a variety of negative events throughout the past decade, and they’re no longer willing to accept anything businesses tell them. Brands that embrace the loss of naïveté and make a concentrated effort to be honest and open in their marketing communications will generate positive consumer responses, which can lead to brand loyalty and brand advocacy. Building trust was the most important thing in 2010, and once you’ve earned it, you need to make sure you keep it. In other words, transparency and trust are not a one-time thing. They’re an ongoing effort.

 

Less interruption, more enhancement and value-add.

The days when ads and marketing messages were developed for the sole purpose of getting the attention of consumers are over. People expect more (or in the case of interruptions, less) from businesses and brands. Give them more by ensuring your marketing communications and efforts deliver useful and meaningful value.

 

Speaking of value . . .

The economic downturn that occurred in the latter part of the past decade stopped many consumers in their tracks. Rather than spending money frivolously, consumers began seeking out deals, using coupons and actively looking for the biggest bang for their buck. When the economy recovers, that behavior will not disappear immediately. Be prepared for the consumer focus on value to continue well beyond 2010, and built marketing campaigns with that consumer demand in mind.

 

Show it, don’t tell it.

Consumers don’t believe everything they hear. Indeed, consumers are more skeptical than ever, and you need to prove your marketing claims. Don’t just tell consumers about your product, business or services, show them what’s in it for them if they pull out their hard-earned money and buy from you.

 

Social media is not going away, and engagement is critical.

Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, and other tools of the online social community are not going anywhere. Instead, these tools are being adopted by more and more people around the world. If you thought you could avoid joining the bandwagon, you were wrong. In 2010, it’s critical that your business joins the social web conversation, and you must engage consumers on the social networking sites. Give them amazing content and interact with them to fully leverage the power of the social media.

 

Peace-of-mind messages prevail.

Consumers have lived through a wide variety of negative events over the past several years, from economic turmoil to environmental disasters and more. They’re actively seeking marketing messages that give them a feeling of peace of mind. Try to communicate a feeling of security in your marketing efforts to meet this need.

 

Relationships rule.

With the growth of web-based social networks and a desire for transparency, trust and peace-of-mind messages, it shouldn’t be surprising that relationships rule in 2010 and beyond. Leverage the social web to interact with people around the world and build relationships that wouldn’t have been possible a decade ago. When you build relationships with consumers, you also build a band of brand loyalists that can become your most powerful source of word-of-mouth marketing, brand advocacy and brand guardianship.

 

Online video and mobile marketing are hot.

Both online video and mobile marketing are set to explode, and we’ll really start to see that happen in 2010. You can create your own online video content or mobile content, or you can invest in online video or mobile advertising. The choice is yours, but there is no better time to jump in than right now!

 

Focus, focus, focus!

Don’t try to be everything to everyone. The strongest brands are focused brands. As the first decade of the 21st century unfolded, marketers and social media professionals began using the term niche more and more to identify highly focused products, websites, blogs and so on. Today, that strategy is even more important. Build your core and keep it as strong as possible before you try to extend your brand and branch out into new areas.

 

 

Integrated marketing trumps stand-alone tactics.

It is absolutely essential that you surround consumers with your marketing messages in 2010. The number of marketing communications that people see each day is overwhelming, so it’s important that your messages don’t get lost in the clutter. You can make your brand, your business and your messages stand out by surrounding consumers with branded experiences and allowing them to choose which of those experiences they want to consume. For example, use online advertising, online video, custom content, point-of-sale collateral, and ads with consistent messaging to engage consumers in different parts of their lives. If you’re consistent and persistent, your messages are more likely to connect with your target audience–raising brand awareness, recognition, purchases and loyalty.

 

Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2010: Flash, Crowdsourcing, Info-Art

 

Digital marketers were gearing up for yet another year of changes that will incorporate both the transformational and the incremental.

 

From the economy’s influence on the burgeoning “do-it-yourself” culture to an increasing reliance on collective wisdom, information-based art, and remote computing, digital experts at Last Exit (via MarketingCharts) have put together the following list of top digital marketing trends they believe will play out in the year ahead.

 

1. Facebook Replaces Personal Email: As Facebook becomes increasingly used as a verb (e.g.”I Facebooked you today”) in ways that Hotmail and gmail never were, it will be interesting to see the extent to which it will displace personal email as a communication tool.  It’s already completely permission based, there is no spam (yet), and no address book required – your friends are already there.

 

2. The Cloud Helps Open-Source Software Make Proper Money: Open-source software projects that were typically the purview of programmers and technophiles are now available to the masses. In one example, Beanstalk, a fully hosted, version-controlled code repository that uses the Subversion open-source project has created a subscription based service that – for a small fee – removes the hassle of setting up Subversions and maintaining servers.  Services like this can really only be financially viable with cloud computing infrastructure – so companies such as Beanstalk don’t have the huge upfront capital outlay for servers. With the right skills any open-source project can be commercialized this way.

 

3. Mobile Commerce -  The Promise That Has Never Delivered, Yet: Though mobile phones have, for a while now, delivered real benefits to global societies by facilitating the transfer of money, only recently has mobile device use extended to payment for goods and services. The game changer has – and will continue to be – the iPhone/iTunes platform.  In-app purchases on the iPhone can tempt users to buy small items, upgrades, updates, etc, while iTunes holds their precious credit card information.  All, of course, is done in seamless fashion, enough to promote impulse purchases.  It would seem like an easy task for this to be extended to other platforms with PayPal or Google Checkout, but so far it has not been done.

 

4. Fewer Registrations - One Sign-in Fits All: As consumers grow increasingly frustrated  and resentful about registering yet again on another website, juggling different IDs and remembering a dizzying array of passwords, information-managing services such as Facebook Connect and OpenID will becoming even more useful and will continue to be adopted at great speed through 2010.

 

5. Disruption vs. Continuity – Alternatives to the “Big Idea”: As the significance of social networks continues to grow, businesses are investing more in community building as a marketing driver. According to the recent Tribalization of Business study released by Deloitte, 94% of businesses will continue or increase their investment in online communities and social media and, for the majority of these companies, their marketing function will drive this investment. At the same time, as evidenced by Google’s recent release of “free floating” social tools, such as Google Waves and Sidewiki, there is an increasing shift toward online identity and social activity being an integrated part of the network as a whole, rather than concentrated within discrete platforms such as Facebook.

 

With the increasing emphasis on marketing and advertising through social networks and the increasing pervasiveness of social tools, marketing objectives come into conflict with advertising techniques. While advertising has often sought to distinguish itself and stop the consumer in their tracks with a disruptive “big idea,” the emphasis is now shifting toward persuasion through fitting organically into the consumer’s social sphere. It will always be the objective of marketing to provide creativity and novelty, but the way in will increasingly be one of persistence and continuity.

 

6. Self-Sufficiency: The Continuing Evolution of Web-Driven, Open-Source DIY Culture: Much has been said about the power and potential of collective intelligence, and many of the breakthrough solutions of tomorrow appear to lie in more effectively pooling the resources and intelligence of our increasingly networked world. On the other side of the equation, the power of pooled intelligence and networked resources have empowered individuals to take on more and more complex undertakings themselves.

 

From drawing on the collective intelligence of blogs and university open courseware to educate themselves, to services like ponoko, spoonflower and cafe press that facilitate small-scale production, to offline resource pooling like pop- up retail and collective office spaces, individuals are discovering that it has never been easier to try doing it themselves.

 

7. Info-Art: Where we once had pop-psychologists and pop-philosophers, we now appear to have pop-statisticians and pop-economists. The growing wealth of data and the access to rich and diverse data sources that are significant by-products of information networks have made the art of data analysis a defining skill of our time.

 

At the same time, the skill of elegantly visualizing that data has become a defining art of our time. The art of the infographic is becoming increasingly pervasive as people look more and more to the growing amount of data at our disposal for insight, and more refined as the interactions of that data becomes more complex. Expect to see greater innovation spurred by more elegant ways of capturing and visualizing information by a growing number of info-artists.

 

8. Crowd Sourcing: Across many industries and organizations, crowd sourcing will become a growing tool as part of various outsourcing strategies. Organizations will mobilize the passionate special-interest groups to not only carry a message but also to lead and take part in activities on their behalf. From political canvassing to software development, from people journalism to environmental activism, expect to see huge growth in crowdsourcing models provoked and led, in large part, by digital social media strategies.

 

9. More Flash, Not Less: Outside of the obvious brand sites, micro-sites and media sites (video, games, etc.) where it appears absolutely necessary, Flash has often been looked down upon if not completely discounted by both techies and search engine optimizers. It seemed to face an uncertain future as a viable tool for serious websites and applications such as eCommerce tools and corporate websites. However, Adobe’s rich media tool has enjoyed the grit and determination of its advocates and external development community. Now, several tricks, authoring tools and server side scripting workarounds have meant that Flash-built websites no longer serve up a single, impenetrable page. They offer deep, searchable, indexable sites that will allow acute, detailed traffic and behavioral analytics and search engine optimization.

 

As websites continue to increase in their importance as a company’s storefront, the demand for rich, brand-extending experiences will also increase. Further proliferation of  fast broadband will reduce download issues while the adoption of Flash on mobile devices will dramatically increase and fuel reach and the desire/need for highly usable, brand transporting, conversion oriented experiences

 

 

Trends in mobile marketing

 

Everyone is talking about mobile at the moment – from games to apps, smartphones, internet access and everything in between! I wanted to look at a few trends in the mobile sector to see what’s really happening and what the opportunities are for businesses. We all know that mobile is big business, but what are the areas that are really growing and what’s coming next? One of the most fascinating things about mobile is that it crosses so many different sectors, that no-one can afford to ignore – from web development, commerce, advertising, video, applications and of course – as a communication tool.

Mobile advertising more than doubling

 

As mobile use and access to the internet through smartphones grows, so too does the advertising model that goes with it. A recent report by Ofcom – The Communications Marketing Report – examines the growth from mobile advertising  company Admob, which doesn’t represent the totality of mobile advertising, but is the largest mobile advertising network. They found that requests served by Admob had more than doubled over the past year, growing from 254 million to 585 million. What I find interesting though, is that revenue from mobile advertising is growing rapidly for the area of gaming, as shown in the graph below.

 

Growth in Gaming

This grew by 214% from 2008 to 2009, and given the moves being made by the major gaming players lately, I’d expect this to soar even more in 2010. Indeed, Microsoft’s decision to bring X-Box Live into the mobile platform should be enough of an indication of the growth in this area.

 

So what if you’re interested in the area of mobile gaming? As well as serving more traditional-style ads in mobile games, there’s also huge potential for companies to get inventive with their mobile advertsing strategies, such as purchasing items during the game itself, though this may be for the more advanced. The findings by Ofcom are certainly encouraging for those that want to get involved in the mobile space. Revenue from mobile gaming is expected to increase to $1.5 billion by 2014, as a combination of paid downloads, items purchased in the game, and advertising revenue as well. As the younger generation start to use smartphones as they rapidly drop in price, you can see the huge potential growth here. It’s an unfamiliar area for many businesses, but a lucrative one nonetheless.

 

Growth in the travel sector

The case for travel companies to utilise mobile marketing is an obvious one. By the very nature of how you use your mobile – while you’re on the go -you’re likely to require access to a travel service, such as travel updates, train times etc.. But mobiles have also made us more social creatures, we like to share as we go, uploading photos of our travels, tweeting on the way etc.. This has contributed to the current trend in mobile access to travel services. A huge 54% of consumers used their smartphone to acesss a travel site/service in May 2010 and this is growing up to 125% year on year. And travel services have the developments in location based services to play with here as well. I don’t think we’re even at the tip of what’s possible with this technology yet and it’s something that travel companies will be investing in.

 

The growth of travel applications is another huge trend in mobile marketing. We’re starting to see big companies invest in this, for example British Airways – who earlier this year launched their iPhone app, that enabled customers to check in using their phone. Though initially launched to members of their Executive Club and on a very limited set of routes, they’re expanding this quickly as they recognise the huge popularity of the technology. Travelocity have also recently released an iPhone app that allows you to book hotels directly:

 

Pay with your mobile

The travelocity app shows that some movement is being made in the area of mobile commerce, but we haven’t quite reached the full potential of this yet. Apple have recently hired Benjamin Vigier as a new head of mobile commerce and soon we could be a little bit closer to paying with your phone. Nokia (who are a client of ours inIreland) are also investing in this area, which is known as ‘Near Field Communications’. The technology has been in existence for a while but has never made it into the mainstream. It’s pretty exciting stuff – think of it as simply swiping your phone over a machine to make a payment. You may never need a wallet again and the payment options for integrating with the internet are huge. No device has yet come close to really marrying those 2 together and I’d expect to see a lot of movement in this space.

 

It’s in no doubt that 2010 has long been billed as the year of mobile. Although we’re already seeing some great things being done, and it’s becoming near standard for a company to have a mobile app, there’s still a lot to come that I don’t think we can even imagine yet. For many businesses and marketers it’s a completey new area and we’re all trying to grasp what can really be done. Some interesting findings presented above and I’ll be sure to keep you updated with more.

 

22 Social Media Marketing Trends in 2010

 

   1. 2010 social media trends. The fact that audience has the control starts to sink in. (Control is an illusion)

   2. Social media will get real budgets. (Most of these budgets will be in-house)

   3. Social media will be integrated to overall marketing activities.

   4. Social media ROI will become important. Measure how much do we get out of social media.

   5. Brands start to use listening platforms to monitor the conversations.

   6. Social media will reach behind corporate firewalls.

   7. Customer service and interaction with businesses becomes social. (Personally touch pays)

   8. Measuring online activities and their effect on offline sales will become increasingly important.

   9. Media will fragment even more and smaller communities can be hyper-targeted.

  10. Social networks chatter will be incorporated into CRM systems.

  11. More sales will originate from social media contacts (B2B and B2C).

  12. Marketing will hit mobiles big time.

  13. All search will be real-time. Web, blogs, social networks.

  14. Real-time will be the right time. Delays will cost customers.

  15. People will use more social networks’ messaging instead of regular email and IM. (Webmail providers should be worried.)

  16. First large scale successful augmented reality applications.

  17. Campaigns will get more dynamic, spanning from offline to actionable social channels.

  18. Social networks will become more commercial.

  19. Ads will be more interactive and connected to social networks.

  20. The home page for internet users will be social network’s profile page. (Social Networks Will Be The Starting Point.)

  21. Facebook will grow to 700 million? ).

22. Shopping will be integrated into social networking sites.

 

11 Branding and Marketing Trends For 2011

 

Predictive loyalty metrics allow marketers to decipher consumers’ emotions, expectations, and imminent behaviors in the marketplace. And, as real loyalty metrics measure the direction and velocity of consumer values 12 to 18 months in advance of the marketplace, they allow me to identify future trends with uncanny accuracy.

 

Having examined these measures in 4Q2010, here’s 11 trends for marketers in 2011. Interestingly, in symbolism and spiritualism, the number 11 is said to possess qualities related to intuition, honesty, understanding and, is also supposed to represent the ideal. The number is said to provide both insight and inspiration. For marketers, these 11 trends will have direct consequences to the success – or failure – of next year’s branding and marketing efforts.

 

1) Value is What the Consumer Says It Is

Excessive spending, even on sale items, will continue to be replaced by a reason-to-buy at all. Only the consumer can tell you for sure. The appearance of ubiquity will be trouble for brands with no authentic meaning, whether high or low-end.

 

2) Brand, Meet Value

Brands will increasingly become a surrogate for “value.” What makes goods and services valuable will increasingly be what’s wrapped up in the brand and what consumers believe the brand means?

 

3) Zappos-ification

Marketers will have to comprehend what really drives their categoy, know what consumers really expect, and where to focus both process and brand efforts. Yes, Zappos sells shoes – but their brand equity lies primarily in the emotional driver of “service” – how they get shoes to customers and accept returns.

 

4) Ethosnomics

Brands increasingly must stand for something beyond just rational items. Brands can’t, however, just “stand for” the cause du jour. Doing what others do, just because they’re doing it, won’t work very long or very effectively. Corporate social responsibility efforts will need to be believable, sustained, and engaging. Some of the strongest will come from those brands that connect the public and the personal in today’s financially-strained world.

 

5) Differentiation Can Be Emotional         

Differentiation remains critical to brand success as the proliferation of products and services available to consumers continues. While true innovation does exist when it comes to the offerings available, increasingly differentiation will come from what the brand offers emotionally to consumers, especially as the ability of brands to mimic and get “me too” products to market quickens.

 

6) They’re talking to Each Other Before Talking to the Brand

Social Networking and DIY media-exchange of information outside of the brand space will increase as consumers become more comfortable with their power to get the true story on products from total strangers. Brands will need to drive positive feedback out in the virtual world like never before, necessitating a deep understand of their categories.

 

7) Friendtelligence

Influence by friends will also increase. If consumers trust the community, they will extend trust to the brand. Not just word-of-mouth, but the right word-of-mouth is what matters. Look for more websites using Facebook Connect to share information with the friends from those sites while trying not to annoy anyone.

 

Putting the Brand into Their Hands

It’s increasingly handheld technology that facilitates transactions.  Brands that make it hard to buy on the small screen will suffer. Watch for promotions and coupons to continue to explode, especially if the brand can customize that experience.

 

9) Prolifetition       

Look for increased competition – and not just from traditional brands. The internet changed the game from consumers feeling they had to know a brand to even consider it. Ubiquitous awareness is replaced by strong word of mouth and positive viral sharing. Knowing what drives a category, what consumers really expect, and what creates loyalty, can give you a meaningful advantage when entering new and uncharted categories populated by strangers to your brand.

 

10) Exponential Expectations

Brands are barely keeping up with consumer expectations now. Every day consumers adopt and devour the latest technologies and innovations, and only hunger for more. As app technology becomes more entrenched, brands will be expected to deliver in that space. Look for even more apps to appear in 2011.

 

11) Engagement is Not a Fad

It’s the way today’s consumers do business. Period. Marketers will continue to use engagement methods like the right platform; program; message; and experience. But there is only one objective for the future: Brand Engagement. Attaining real brand engagement is impossible using out-dated awareness models.

 

Accommodating these trends will require changes on the parts of how companies measure, manage, and market their brands. And, yes, change can sometimes be terrifying. But change is, more or less, another chance. However, for brands that ignore these trends, it could very well be their last

 

 

 

2010 Marketing Trends Survey

 

Email and Social Media Marketing are Top Areas of Investment in New Year. A new strong Mail survey conducted by Zoomerang from November 17 toNovember 25, 2009reflects the attitudes of more than 1,000 business leaders in regards to their planned marketing budgets, preferred marketing channels, social media adoption and anticipated customer revenue in 2010. The data identifies that the vast majority of businesses plan to increase or maintain budgets in the New Year, with email marketing and social media as the top two areas of investment. The survey also shows that businesses are optimistic about how much their customer’s will spend.

 

Conclusion;

         

          By observing the above listed trends it clearly states that the future marketing mainly depends on Social Networks, Mobile phones, iphones, etc.Gaming will also play a prominent role in the future marketing scenario. It clearly states that the digital word is clearly going to dominate the marketing world and e-commerce and e-business may tke a new turn. Social networking sites may also likely to take a new shape. Overall we can state that the digital marketing will dominate the traditional marketing.

 

 

References/Sources:

 

[1]   www.strongmail.com/company/news-and-events/press_120209. php

[2]   www.entrepreneur.com

[3]   interactivemarketingtrends.blogspot.com

[4]   www.brandingstrategyinsider.com

[5]   www.newsandtrends.net

[6]   www.viralblog.com/social…/7-solid-social-media-marketing-trends

[7]   www.cmo.com

 

 

*Faculty Alluri Institute of Management Sciences,Warangal,A.P. 506001

About the Author

V V Narendra Kumar

MS(Software Systems),M.Tech(IT),DIM,[PhD]

Assoc.Professor,Informatics

Alluri Institute of Management Sciences,

Warangal,A.P.,India

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