It’s 2024 in case you hadn’t noticed! Hopefully the hangover from new year’s eve has worn off, you haven’t broken all of the resolutions yet and are looking forward to the year ahead full of new marketing possibilities! We are kick-starting with a quick guide to what’s new, what will boost your brand efforts this year and what to adopt.
- AI Baby!
The stats don’t lie. 92% of Marketers plan to integrate AI into their marketing effort in 2024 (according to a Brandwatch Survey) – And with AI in marketing, the world is really your virtual oyster, there are so many different platforms which range from helping to write engaging content for blogs and newsletters all the way through to generative AI tools which can edit and create credible images or even creative videos (Hint, hint we used AI to generate the image for this blog!). Help your website with writing better title tags and meta descriptions, sculpt better advertising copy and of course, get more engagement with your social media posts, you can even use AI-driven customer service chats.
Not every tool suits every business and B2B technical copy is harder to create authentically – but don’t be afraid to experiment and find out what works for you. Start with some copywriting tools – whether to write more expressive, character defined copy, well-crafted SEO biased blogs or detailed product descriptions. Recommended tools we suggest starting with are: Copy.ai or Jasper.ai , most platforms do charge and there’s a handy guide on Semrush as to pricing and features.
- Be real! (No, not the App)
In the age of AI (as above, can be amazing when used and fact checked correctly) customers also conversely want authentic content – This virtue factors heavily into consumer buying decisions – with buyers considering a brand’s authenticity prior to purchasing. Top Tip: Make sure if you use AI – the content doesn’t sound too bot-created.
A great way to give consumers’ authentic content is by showcasing customer testimonials and even thinking about employee generated content – Showing customers what genuine activities your company is getting up to and adding the “human” element hugely affects conversion rates.
- Social Awareness – it pays to listen
In 2024 – social listening is key, keep an eye on real-time insights from consumers on socials about your brand or product. Understand who’s talking about your brand, your competitors and what they’re saying. Adopting user sentiment analysis of conversations to adopt and use content that fully resonates with your audience. Benchmarking brand sentiment allows marketers to understand how consumers perceive your brand in relation to social issues. Measuring and acting on this data to highlight gaps you can fill with your communications and posts, otherwise maybe you are just posting content for no material gain.
Try and stay up to date and be proactive about the industry you are in, what’s happening in the world and how the public and your customers view your brand. Being reactive to real time insights can help drive profitability by understanding and resonating the preferences of your consumers. This knowledge is crucial for ROI-driven marketing especially when you consider how long is spent on social activity versus print and digital advertising channels, better audience understanding and just listening to sentiment just makes you more interesting to listen to. In conversation, speaking without listening is not an attractive quality, try to adopt this more in 2024 – in and out of work!
- If it’s not personal – make it so!
Personalisation can make a customer feel acknowledged and valued – which leads to an increase in brand loyalty and also forges a stronger relationship between the brand and customer base. Interestingly, over 60% of consumers will purchase again when offered a personalised purchase process. Personalisation doesn’t need to be scary – this can be as simple as making sure customers only get re-targeted with a product they’re interested in, or even using their first name during communication.
Interestingly, recent research points to the fact that B2B brands drive more emotional connections than B2C brands. B2B customers are significantly more emotionally connected to their vendors and service providers than consumers. While it may seem surprising, this high level of connection with B2B customers makes a lot of sense; when a personal consumer makes a bad purchase, the stakes are relatively low. Business purchases, on the other hand, can involve huge amounts of risk.
Need help with more emotive marketing and using the right personalised approach? We offer a range of different marketing services here at TDP – from email campaign management and creation all the way through to a complete campaign planning, including social media management, in-depth campaign assessment through to highly targeted print and direct mail campaigns. Get in touch today to find out how our team can help support your marketing activities and make them highly personal.
- Make it Quick…Or Short
Short form content is King! – A recent study by Yahoo shows Gen Z loses their active attention for ads after just 1.3 seconds. But most marketers haven’t moved on from the mindset of 30-second TV ads. So the actual attention time brands have to attract and engage their customers is quicker than ever, so the main message and call to action needs to be clear straight away.
Short form articles, social posts and even videos are the best way in 2024 to captivate and engage – In fact, short-form video have 76% higher impressions with campaigns such as Instagram reels, thereby proving itself 20% more effective at conversion compared to other video formats. In 2024, move away from the mindset of even 15- and 30-seconds ads, it’s highly likely your audience just won’t engage, consumers won’t pay attention; you need to be more agile to compete in this short attention economy.
Brevity is your friend – over and out!