Following a year in which businesses seriously began to consider social as an integral part of their marketing strategy, an evolution in this direction will continue to further impact the marketing discipline into 2013. In 2012, marketers stopped talking about social as if it’s a fad and began exploring how best to integrate social media throughout their multi-channel campaigns. Steven Woods, Chief Technology Officer, Eloqua, offers the following predictions for modern marketers in 2013.
In the year ahead, social integration, along with other digital developments such as the increased prevalence of SaaS technology and increased attention paid to social insights, considerations of big data will also be at the forefront of consideration for modern marketers in 2013.
1. Social, social, social.
Similar to 2012, in 2013 marketers, especially B2B marketers will be looking to take the social information they’ve collected on potential customers and turn it into meaningful insight. Marketers will focus on integrating a prospect’s social identity to further understand their unique wants and needs as well as who they trust.
2. In 2013, we’ll see an increased focus on “Big Data” for marketers.
Marketers will look to leverage technology as best they can to use “Big Data” to their advantage – understanding much more about their buyers to the point where they can more accurately predict future behaviours.
3. SaaS technology is continuing to become the standard.
As an industry we’re seeing more innovation in the direction of a marketing “ecosystem”, due to the flexibility of SaaS. In 2013 and beyond, it’s not merely about what your marketing platform can do on its own, but how other applications can connect to it. As marketers start integrating other applications into their marketing automation platform, they’ll have a much more in-depth view of the customer.
By Steven Woods
Chief Technology Officer
Eloqua
www.eloqua.com
