Page 4 - AeM_January_2019

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Adapt to future marketing or go down

the drain

Marketing has become ‘really’ digital in the last 20 customer with some luck.
years: we have email, search (SEO and SEA), social
media and content marketing, affiliate marketing, Where is the problem?
influencer marketing and native advertising – all
measurable, everything personal and individualized. • Technology: Today, tools are still so complicated
that no one can build a website intuitively. Even the
That seems to be good, but the fact is that we still stay acclaimed WordPress is awkward and contains
behind the possibilities: content management systems tons of useless code, search engine optimization
are bulky, emails are not displayed on different devices (SEO) is a topic by itself and "individualization is
as we like it, personalization is mostly limited to the often most frustrating.
salutation, and most B2B accounts in social media
interact so intensely with customers as an advertising • Focus: Generally, we want the customer to buy
pillar. what we produce - but this focus is wrong. Rather,
we have to ask what the customer wants – or even
Besides that, the colleagues in marketing are often still better, what he needs or how we can solve a
overwhelmed by the technology and rely on external problem for him - and then create content that
agencies, the statistics are only looked at to justify the wows him. The art is to produce relevant,
budget and nobody keeps an eye on the customer interesting and amusing (remember RIA) content.
journey. There is a lack of strategy, clear personas, We have to stop to adapt the customer to the
individualization and every shop looks the same. Is that content. Instead, marketing must explore what’s on
the beautiful new digital world?
the customer’s mind. If we do it right, we
understand the customer better than he does
Clearly, there is still a lack of real understanding of himself and can do more for him than he demands.
digitization and digital transformation, since we continue
to create most of the time generic leaflets and ads when
trying to get attention, knowing that it will only reach the

4 January 2019 - Digital Business Trends Predictions