marketing predictions for 2015

The new, changing buyer has caused a huge shift in marketing. No longer is sales on the frontlines of the buyer journey. Instead, the marketer drives the relationship.

2015 is the year of the marketer! And at Marketo, we know marketing best practices. To help you jumpstart your 2015 brainstorming and planning, we have come up with 2015 predictions from our own internal thought leaders.

YEAR OF THE MARKETER!

MARKETINGIn 2015 we’ll see the continued shift away from transactional marketing, with a ‘click’ as the point of interaction to a new era of engagement marketing, where marketers focus on engaging people on a personal level, continuously over time, and across all channels and experiences.

To prepare for this change and embrace it, marketers can focus on 4 things:

SANJAY DHOLAKIAChief Marketing Officer

New Years Resolution:

Skiing is my escape, it helps me get centered and it’s an activity where I am totally immersed in the moment. I skied 30 days last year and in 2015, I want to do 40.

MARKETING1. Your OrganizationDo an audit of your organization— are there missing skills when it comes to creating a customer journey and customer relationships? Do you have silos that prevent your team from creating a seamless experience? Hire to prepare your organization for the new era of engagement marketing.




MARKETING2. Technology & DataGet smart about the tools and capabilities that are available to you. What tools will help you create meaningful communication and individual relationships at scale? What data and analytics do you need to create the experiences and outcomes you want? Start with the end in mind and design backwards.




MARKETING3. ContentAre you able to hold a conversation with a potential customer and share things that are meaningful and relevant to them? Understand the value your audience is looking for, where they look for it, and develop the capacity to create content that delivers value.




MARKETING4. Internal Leadership & AlignmentWhat will it take for your company to have an externalized, consistent view of the customer relationship? Are other functions like sales, service, and product aligned to your customer journey and map? Marketing needs to step into a leadership role and guide the change process, getting other people and teams in your organization prepared to do real engagement marketing.




Earned media will matter more than ever—today there are fewer journalists and publication making earned media’s supply and demand challenge very complicated.

The earned media you deliver in 2015 will carry more weight and gravitas than ever before.

COMMUNICATIONS

MIKE MOELLERVice President, Brand and Communications


I run to clear my mind, and this year I am also running to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

The separation between publishing and editorial in media is gone and the boundary will start to be redrawn in 2015. Traditional publishing firms have been playing in the gray area, with sponsored content and native advertising. We’ve seen that readers don’t care who generates the content so publishers looking for cash have gained a tremendous amount of velocity from these products.

In 2015, it will be interesting to see how audiences react, and if there is a significant push back to this new ‘digital’ advertorial.

COMMUNICATIONS

MIKE MOELLERVice President, Brand and Communications


I run to clear my mind, and this year I am also running to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

Communicating with your buyers across channels, including mobile, social, email, and website is going to be even more critical in 2015.

Since today’s buyers are interacting with brands on-the-go on their mobile devices and communicating via many channels, it is critical that brands be where their customers are.

MARKETING AUTOMATION

KELSEY KAJIWARAMarketing Operations Specialist


Volunteer more and make a positive impact in the community.

Marketing automation platforms will start to optimize more heavily for multi-channel, and will include more mobile and social listening capabilities.

The other trend I see for marketing automation in 2015 is personalization. People are tired of being blasted with generic content. Through innovations like real-time personalization on websites and email marketing, marketers will be able to target and segment for a better user experience.

MARKETING AUTOMATION

KELSEY KAJIWARAMarketing Operations Specialist


Volunteer more and make a positive impact in the community.

Optimizing design for mobile will be huge for 2015. Mobile and tablets are the future, so companies will start to create more custom mobile applications for their marketing campaigns and product solutions.

Additionally, digital publishing will start to become a focus. Instead of static ebooks, companies will start moving to more interactive electronic media. Ebooks and other written content will have embedded videos, interactive graphics, social integrations, and mobile optimization.

DESIGN

DAVIS LEECreative Director


I would love to complete a full marathon.

In 2015, the line between B2B and B2C content will continue to blur as storytelling and customer experience becomes more important than ever.

B2B companies will focus on telling more compelling and interesting stories in a much more humanistic and entertaining way. We will start to see more multi-channel and relevant campaigns that focus on behavior and emotional appeal.

CONTENT

DAYNA ROTHMANSenior Manager, Content Marketing


Start a personal blog or write more LinkedIn Pulse articles.

I also think that mobile and multi-device content will become increasingly more important and more interactive. More and more content will be read solely on mobile and tablet devices, so marketers will have to think about mobile user experience with their content and even create content specific to mobile devices. Wearable technology will also provide an additional layer to providing content and user experiences on-the-go.

CONTENT

DAYNA ROTHMANSenior Manager, Content Marketing


Start a personal blog or write more LinkedIn Pulse articles.

In 2015, social will be considered an integral part of an organization’s digital marketing mix, becoming a real revenue engine.

To do this well, organizations need to create relevant and personalized social campaigns, be ready to do real-time optimization of their social advertisements, and take advantage of the increasingly refined targeting options on each social platform.

SOCIAL

DIVYA DUTTSenior Program Manager (PPC & Social)

SHANNA COOKSocial Media Manager

The other trend we’ll see in 2015 is that social influencer identification tools will become more prevalent and refined. Incorporating influencers into your social marketing has become more and more important. A tool that helps social media teams identify social influencers, and get content in front of them and their audiences is key to success.

SOCIAL

New Years Resolution (Divya):

Sign up for more volunteer opportunities. I am especially passionate about helping kids in need.

New Years Resolution (Shanna):

I come up with my best social campaign ideas after an intense workout. So training for my first full marathon will be hundreds of miles of marketing breakthroughs (it also will counteract my desk job)!

As organizations shift towards engagement marketing in 2015, they will need a team member to ensure the entire organization is focused on emphasizing personal relationships and delivering relevant messages to customers at every stage in their lifecycle.

DAVID CAINGroup Vice President of Global Demand Marketing


This year I traveled to a couple places on my travel bucket list, Sydney and Dublin, and I am resolute to explore more in 2015, I’m aiming for three!

MARKETING ORGANIZATIONS

They should have insight into the teams that are customer touch- points, like customer success sales, etc. and drive their programs toward a united vision.

MARKETING ORGANIZATIONSWhile customer journey roles already exist, in 2015 this role will look holistically across the organization and be accountable for ensuring a seamless customer experience.




Another shift we’ll see 2015 will be in content. Obviously the role of content in a marketing organization has grown over time, but we will start to see content roles that focus on creating content for the entire customer journey, across multiple channels and with a singular voice. Content will start to own and define an organization’s voice. To do that well, you’ll need dedicated resources.

MARKETING ORGANIZATIONS




SEO is going to continue to become more competitive and difficult—especially with the focus on creating authentic content.

Companies know that this shift is eminent and are spending more time and money creating unique and valuable content across multiple channels. Just having a website isn’t enough anymore. Blogs, contributed content, and social media posts will become increasingly important in 2015.

SEO

MIKE TOMITASenior Manager, Online Marketing


To sign up for Twitter.

SEOGoogle is putting less emphasis on keywords and more on how they relate to search. They are looking at keywords as part of a bigger, more comprehensive picture. Companies must have real expertise in what they are talking about to even rank.

Instead, companies will have to be more creative and test what content ranks and resonates across all online channels.

MIKE TOMITASenior Manager, Online Marketing


To sign up for Twitter.

DEMAND GENERATIONMarketers in demand generation are more inundated than ever with technology and the pressure to communicate across multiple channels.

In 2015 we will start to see products that make it easier and more streamlined for organizations to communicate across channels.

HEIDI BULLOCKVice President of Global Demand Generation


In 2015 I’m going to take more mini-vacations, spend time sending notes to my friends (funny memes included) and focus on being guilt-free about not finishing the books on my nightstand!

DEMAND GENERATIONI believe we will begin to move towards a model of not ‘doing everything’ in digital marketing because it’s possible, but rather be confident and data-drive enough in our decisions to ‘do what’s best’ for your business. Additionally, we’ll see more budget requests for content so we’ll need to be able to justify it. Marketers will need to become more data-driven about their content —meaning, have a clear understanding of the goal for content, and a specific mechanism to know what works and what doesn’t.

HEIDI BULLOCKVice President of Global Demand Generation


In 2015 I’m going to take more mini-vacations, spend time sending notes to my friends (funny memes included) and focus on being guilt-free about not finishing the books on my nightstand!

The first trend I see for events in 2015 is mobile. I think that mobile is going to start changing the way that we interact at events.

Event apps are going to be more useful and serve a bigger purpose. They won’t be just floor plans. Instead, they will include social components, a way to interact directly with attendees, include a full branded look and feel, and innovative lead capture and customization.

EVENTS

ANDREA CONTIEvent Marketing Manager


To successfully plan my wedding without becoming a Bridezilla. More event planning!

Marketers are aware of how important multichannel marketing is, but all channels are not equal. I believe that we’ll see 2015 become mobile first, where mobile rises above other channels.

CORPORATE & PRODUCT MARKETING

CHANDAR PATTABHIRAMVice President, Product and Corporate Marketing


Pick tennis back up after many years. I used to play a lot with my kids and in the New Year I want to get doubles tennis going again, once a week, to have some fun and build camaraderie.

To prepare for this, marketers need to focus on both consistency and consumability—not only to make sure that they are providing a consistent experience across channels but to also ensure that that they provide a highly consumable mobile experience.

I also think that marketers will see a continued shift from focusing on the art to the science of customer interactions and insights.

Marketers will be faced with the question: ‘How do I use data to drive meaningful interactions and insights?’





To do this well they will need to drive hyper-personalized interactions based on what a prospect or customer does (behaviors) versus just who they are (demographic/firmographic information). And then be able to empirically measure the effectiveness of these interactions and make data-driven decisions.





Marketo (NASDAQ: MKTO) provides the leading marketing software and solutions designed to help marketers master the art and science of digital marketing. Through a unique combination of innovation and expertise, Marketo is focused solely on helping marketers keep pace in an ever-changing digital world. Spanning today’s digital, social, mobile and offline channels, Marketo’s Engagement Marketing Platform powers a set of breakthrough applications to help marketers tackle all aspects of digital marketing from the planning and orchestration of marketing activities to the delivery of personalized interactions that can be optimized in real-time. Marketo’s applications are known for their ease-of-use, and are complemented by the Marketing Nation®, a thriving network of 400 third-party solutions through our LaunchPoint® ecosystem and over 50,000 marketers who share and learn from each other to grow their collective marketing expertise. The result for modern marketers is unprecedented agility and superior results. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA with offices in Europe, Australia and Japan, Marketo serves as a strategic marketing partner to more than 3,400 large enterprises and fast-growing small companies across a wide variety of industries. For more information, visit marketo.com.

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