The marketing industry is undergoing constant transformations. Professionals in the field must not only know the latest industry trends but also stay one step ahead of them.
Because we want to be relevant in our field of activity, we are constantly looking for ways to promote professionalism and ways to learn from other professionals.
With this in mind, last week – on May 24, 2017, Corina Cimpoca – founder of MKOR Consulting, gave a presentation at Best Marketing, an event organized by Revista Biz.
Corina spoke about marketing trends, especially digital marketing, where the pace of change is rapid. The presentation highlighted the importance of customer satisfaction as an indicator of a trend’s viability.
Customer-oriented trends
Marketing trends continue to be customer-oriented in 2017. The fact that we live in an increasingly digitized and connected world makes us direct all these resources toward consumer demands.
Consumers need to feel that brands care about them; they need to be responded to in a personalized way. The relationship between consumers and the brand must pass the trust test.
More than ever, customers are the ones who will set the trends. Customer satisfaction is the performance indicator that marketers are adopting this year, starting from service and Customer Care departments.
This is another indication that the boundaries between marketing, services, and sales are blurring. Marketing is becoming a service that also handles loyalty, not just bringing in new customers.
Trend :: Retail-tainment
The idea behind this concept is to bring entertainment elements, such as cafes or virtual reality, into stores.
The offering in relaxation areas ranks second in terms of preferences for spending time in malls:
- 29% of visitors to Bucharest malls ate at one of the existing restaurants.
- On the other hand, 18% of those surveyed stated they went to the mall just to walk around.
Because market abundance makes choices difficult, consumers will be attracted to buy from places that offer a pleasant experience in addition to the sought-after product. Thus, the notion of retail-tainment emerged, meaning the association of retail with entertainment.
Through a guerrilla marketing campaign, IKEA brought its products into the city, in unexpected places.
For example, in a subway station, the old benches were replaced with their comfortable sofas, and at the pedestrian crossing, people could sit in a hammock.
Trend :: Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT allows the collection of data about consumer habits and offers marketers the possibility to interact effectively with them.
From the most recent market study conducted by MKOR, it results that only 4 out of 10 Romanians choose to go on vacation through a travel agency. The most frequently cited reason why they prefer to choose their destination and make their own reservations is the lack of utility of the agency’s services.
In other words, Romanian consumers do not see why they would pay for services they can obtain very easily. They get advice on choosing a destination through virtual tours, they find the price list on booking.com, tour guides are replaced by mobile apps, and they can pay for tickets directly on the site.
Hotels, airlines, and tourist complexes use new technologies to automate many of their operations. In airports, IoT already helps passengers navigate more easily through terminals and helps retailers with more precise targeting.
For example, hotels use IoT so that air conditioning systems respond in a personalized way to customers.
Imagine that the hotel door communicates with your smartphone and opens automatically when you are near it, and when you enter, you will be greeted by an ambiance exactly to your taste.
Marketers in the tourism industry collect information using IoT-connected devices to deeply understand traveler behaviors. IoT will increasingly influence the vacation experience.
Trend :: Sustainability
Access to real-time communication has led to an increase in consumer appetite for information. This leads to increased attention regarding the origin of the products they consume, but also how “green” the brand is, in general.
According to a study conducted by MKOR Consulting, searching for desired products on Google is the main source of information for both online and offline consumers: approximately 60% of them use Internet searches to identify the stores where they will make purchases.
Find out more directly from Corina’s presentation
If you want to find out more about marketing trends, you can browse here the presentation Corina gave at Best Marketing.
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About Best Marketing
Best Marketing is the conference where the best marketing and communication specialists meet, the event that puts trends into perspective and identifies the problems facing the industry.
About BIZ
Biz is the brand that brings together a strong community of business people, both online and offline.
The editorial team has established itself by conducting important studies and rankings in partnership with research agencies, on the most important fields of activity in Romania: Top 50 performing companies, Marketing Directors Yearbook, Top 20 IT companies worth working for, Top PR Agencies in Romania, Brand Ro, or BizTech.
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