While no two product marketing roles are alike, all product marketers can agree that the challenge of getting a product to market is knowing your target customer and how best to interact with them. Here are 7 marketing trends that will help product marketers do just that.
1. Data and personalisation
Customers are increasingly concerned about privacy, and industry leaders Apple and Google have responded accordingly with changes to how data is shared. However, customers realise their data is valuable and are happy to share their personal information in exchange for something they value. Brands demonstrating a clear value in exchange for customer data will tap into a virtuous customer experience cycle.
Tapping into zero-party data — data that a customer willingly shares with a business in a value exchange will help product marketers stay ahead of data and personalisation trends.
2. Extend your customer’s reality
Immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality will continue to evolve and offer product marketers new opportunities to reach and engage customers. According to XR Association, by 2025, immersive technologies will be as ubiquitous as mobile phones, spanning gaming, healthcare, education, manufacturing, automotive and entertainment. Marketers will continue to use immersive technology to help customers experience their brand in new and innovative ways, including virtual product demonstrations, product training, virtual shopping experiences and the metaverse.
3. Omnichannel will reign supreme
With customers demanding the ability to purchase from a brand, no matter the channel, product marketers need to embrace a wider variety of shopping experiences, including:
- Mobile commerce
- Social media commerce
- Headless commerce
- Live commerce, and
- Voice & Video Shopping
4. Intent monitoring
Not all “leads” are created equal. Some have a higher potential deal value than others; some are already actively researching your products, while others don’t even have a buying intent. So how do you tell the difference? By monitoring user intent data.
User intent data can transform how you interact with your prospects. Intent data includes:
- First-party data — Data you can access through your own website and CRM tools
- Zero-party data — Information provided by your customers in a value exchange
- Second-party data — Intent data collected by another company and then purchased by you, for example, the information provided by users on another platform where they have permitted that information to be shared
- Third-party data — Data collected online, such as reviews and social media channels.
While marketers have used first-party intent data since the inception of data, there are multiple ways to get more information through first-party sources using interactive content, including:
- Quizzes
- Calculators
- Chatbots
- Polls
- Surveys
- eCommerce recommendation quizzes
By monitoring intent data, you can select which prospects have the intent to buy or are actively searching for information on your business.
5. Return of experiential marketing
With markets now opened back up, experiential marketing campaigns are making a comeback. Experiential marketing enables audiences to enter an immersive experience, often at a physical place or via augmented or virtual reality experiences.
Experiential marketing campaigns provide a unique way to engage with your target audience and create an unforgettable experience and can include:
- Brand activations
- Installations
- Sponsorship
- Roadshows
- Interactive digital
- Trade shows
- Virtual & Hybrid events
6. Neuromarketing and emotional intelligence
Be it customer service, product quality, or how consumers feel about the companies they do business with; the customer experience ultimately determines whether or not they decide to buy your product once or become a repeat customer.
With four-out-of-five consumers switching brands due to a poor experience, understanding how your customer builds an emotional connection to your products will become a core feature for brands in the future. From accessing artificial intelligence to using evolving neuromarketing techniques, brands will need to move from solely relying on operational data like sales, margins and revenue and learn what customers they want and value.
Neuromarketing is the scientific study of how the brain responds to branding and advertising. Neuromarketing uses neuroscience, behavioural economics and social psychology insights to measure and improve product design, branding and marketing practices. As neuromarketing technology evolves, it will broaden its influence on marketing strategy.
7. Voice marketing
What is voice marketing?
Voice marketing is a set of tactics and tools businesses use to market their products across voice platform ecosystems such as Alexa and Google Assistant and other devices that interact with humans using voice assistants such as smart TVs, home devices and cars.
Voice marketing includes:
- Voice ads that are distributed through podcasts and home devices
- Audio branding
- Podcasts
- Voice search optimisation
Most product marketers taking their first steps in voice marketing focus on voice search marketing. According to Google, 27% of the online global population uses voice search on mobile. Optimising for voice search involves:
- Understanding your type of customer and device behaviour
- Focus on conversational long-tail keywords
- Create compelling persona-based content
- Use schema markup in your content to tell search engines what your site’s about
- Build pages that answer FAQs
- Think mobile and think local
Enhancing customer experiences through emerging technology and marketing experiences helps product marketers stay ahead of the curve and outpace their competition. Meeting customers where they are builds emotional connections and product loyalty, which becomes an asset within itself.
Viabrand® is an experienced Brisbane marketing team and branding agency that can help develop and execute agile marketing plans. Book a complimentary, no-obligation 30-minute call to learn more: https://calendly.com/viabrand/30min