Then and Now - A Glimpse into the Future

Over the past 50 years, marketing and advertising have undergone remarkable transformations. Let’s take a brief journey through the decades and explore what lies ahead for 2024.

1970s: The TV Takeover

The ‘70s saw the rise of television advertising. Catchy jingles, memorable slogans, and captivating commercials captured audiences.

1980s: Direct & Personalized

The ‘80s introduced direct marketing and database marketing. Marketers used customer data for more personalized messaging.

1990s: The Digital Revolution

The ‘90s marked the dawn of digital marketing. Websites, emails, and banner ads opened new avenues to reach diverse audiences.

2000s: Social Media & Mobile 

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter surged in the 2000s. Marketers leveraged these to engage consumers. Mobile marketing rose with smartphone adoption.

2010s: Data-Driven Personalization 

The 2010s brought data-driven marketing, powered by analytics, AI, and machine learning. Personalized experiences and targeted campaigns became standard.

2020s: Omnichannel & Consumer Experiences 

In the current decade, marketers aim for seamless, omnichannel experiences. Customer engagement and personalized interactions take center stage. 

2024: Upcoming Trends

Now, what can we expect in 2024?

  • First-Party Data: Privacy concerns make first-party data essential for personalized campaigns. 

  • AI-Powered Marketing: AI continues to transform marketing, automating tasks, analyzing data, and enhancing personalized experiences. 

  • Video Dominance: Video marketing remains strong, especially live streaming for immersive content. 

  • Social commerce: Shopping via social media becomes even more streamlined. 

  • Brand Purpose: Consumers seek brands with social responsibility and authenticity. 

  • Privacy-Centric: Privacy protection becomes crucial with transparent data practices. 

  • Streaming and CTV: The shift to streaming and Connected TV advertising continues offering new opportunities.

The marketing landscape keeps evolving, and staying ahead means adapting to new technologies, strategies, and customer expectations. Embrace these trends to build stronger brand connections, drive growth, and continue to stay competitive in 2024 and beyond!

The Future of Advertising

What’s Hot

Short-form video: TikToks, Reels, etc. 91%surveyed by DigitalMarketer.com said this will be bigger than it currently is.

Email marketing: 57% surveyed said email will be a bigger deal in the next 12-18 months 

Youtube ads: 56% surveyed said these will be a big deal over the next 12-18 months

Honorable Mentions: AI for copywriting and design, paid communities, influencers, and sell-by-chat / SMS marketing

What’s Not 

One-Touch Conversions: 43% said one touch conversions, which are the idea that somebody will arrive at your website and buy on first visit. This is becoming less common as sale cycles are beginning to be longer. 

Organic Social: 34% surveyed said organic social because all these things have gotten much harder to do now 

Honorable Mentions: Facebook groups, chatbots, influencers (marketers aren’t sure where they will land in the coming months)

Big Trends We Are Seeing Now

Subsidized customer acquisition cost (CAC) is dead: No longer is CAC being subsidized by big social media companies. Reality is, it just costs more to acquire customers now. For example, in 1999 on google organic you could rank on the first page of google just by keyword stuffing a bunch of keywords in the bottom of the page. Then it became harder when you had to buy clicks. Then Facebook ads came out and they were dirt cheap. The trend has always been that it is easy in the beginning and then it gets harder and more expensive. It was less expensive because these big companies were subsidizing our customer acquisition costs. The big new media companies (Google, Meta, TikTok) have been subsidizing our customer acquisition costs but the reality is to acquire a customer just costs more than what most of us have had to invest. 

Sales cycles are expanding: Consumers are still spending but they are taking longer to make buying decisions. They stay in the research stage of the purchasing cycle for even longer now.

What We Should Be Doing For 2023 

Emails - time to make email social again. Start having conversation based emails to insight interaction. Email used to be our primary way of online conversation so it is time to switch back to this. Try to optimize for the conversation instead of the conversion. Change call to actions to reply to the email. Do this by making your CTA a question that a consumer would naturally respond to. Write casually like you would to a friend, short and choppy.

If you aren’t already doing this type of digital advertising, talk to us and see how our social driver package can help you start using short videos, emails, and youtube ads or try our CRM driver, which incorporates making emails social again by having a conversational tone!