BDB recently attended this year’s Prolific North Live event, which brings together media, marketing and creative professionals from across the country, to share valuable insight and cutting edge market developments. Here, we highlight the key topics from the event’s digital marketing seminars led by IAB, Quadrant, Microsoft and Google:
Why digital marketing?
In 2015, £8.606bn was spent on digital media in the UK alone. IAB UK’s presentation explored the importance of smart digital marketing to reach and wow your audience. According to IAB’s recent survey, the majority of marketing budgets in the UK were assigned to digital marketing efforts (43%). Of this activity, 48% of the budget was spent on digital banner adverts.
To make smarter digital marketing efforts, computers are increasingly being used to create further personalised messages and cater to consumers’ individual needs. This, combined with more creative and interactive initiatives, such as virtual reality programmes, presents marketers with the opportunity to really impress their audiences.
Finding the balance
In this presentation, Quadrant discussed the positive effects of multiple and continued brand exposure. Although rational messaging, such as features and whitepapers, achieve short-term wins, it is the longer term brand affinity efforts that create more of an emotional connection with consumers. With this in mind, in order to create a lasting impression, it is important to project continuous brand messaging to your audience, rather than sporadic bursts of content for short-term wins.
The future of search
Just ten years ago, search engines could only capture data if someone made an enquiry. Now, platforms know increasingly more about their users, including location, past searches and interests. In their presentation, Bing highlighted how developments in personalisation technology are driving search engines to provide better and more individual results. The talk also demonstrated that the way in which consumers interact with technology is changing, with 65% of smart phone owners now stating they regularly use voice recognition functions.
In addition, it may be possible for search engines to predict what will happen in the future, through our search terms and website visits. For example, Microsoft accurately guessed who would win American Idol in the first week of the show, simply through analysing the US populations’ web searches!
Digital in 2017
Google’s presentation highlighted the overall state of the digital marketing industry. For years, industry experts have predicted the ‘Year of the Mobile’ and in 2016, it finally happened, as mobile overtook desktop searches for the first time. Now, Google suggests, 2017 is going to be the year of the video, with 64% of consumers using YouTube to find and review products before they purchase.
Overall, the event highlighted how much our digital consumption has changed, even over the past couple of years. With exciting technology and more personalised marketing than ever before, 2017 is set to be an exciting year for the digital marketing industry!
To find out more about BDB’s digital marketing services, get in touch.