Earlier this month we went to the Digital Summit Denver, or DSD, and wanted to share some highlights. Like pretty much all conferences, we left the sessions curious, inspired, and looking towards the future and our role in it.
Think about what your job will look like in the future; these trends will probably help to shape it in some way. And with that, let’s get to the top trends of the conference.
Top trends:
- Mobile First – This is no new concept, but it is always worth mentioning because it isn’t a priority for some brands.
- Spoiler Alert: There is a large mobile update coming for Google sometime this year.
- AMP’s (accelerated mobile pages) are starting to gain major prevalence in Google mobile searches.
- “Youthification” of society is a thing.
- Older adults are beginning to utilize the same apps and social media of the younger generations.
- Ultra-Personalization – We have heard this before too, but now there are technologies that go beyond saying the person’s name in an email.
- Dynamic messaging is so important in all aspects of technological advertising.
- Make sure to reach the right segment of consumers with the right content at the right time.
- Segmentation is key (in all forms of advertising)
- Optimizing the Customer Experience – The customer journey needs to be optimized across devices.
- Analytics is a bigger issue than checking the CRM/CMS data, web traffic, etc. This isn’t the essence of big data. Brands need to be reacting in real time and changing content for customers dynamically.
- Inhibitors to delivering an effective omni-channel experience
- Omni-channel development: Automation is difficult and many times there is no single view of customer experience, which leads to exporting data from multiple systems that interact with the customer. This often leads to poor customer engagement.
- Poorly designed customer journey, because brands can’t really see the full picture due to insufficient technology, resources, etc.
- There is a struggle to respond to rapidly changing business conditions (digital disruptions, UGC, memes, and the Airbnbs of the world are changing the way people consume content and interact).
As digital marketers, we know that the landscape of our job is constantly evolving. And that is part of the fun, but we need insights, understanding, and (mostly) passion to continue to move forward.
“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” – Walt Disney
What were your key takeaways or highlights from the Digital Summit Denver?
