Brief Summary
This video discusses six key marketing trends for staying ahead in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. It emphasises the importance of adopting AI for marketing automation and ad targeting, creating engaging short-form and long-form content, building trust through first-party data and brand storytelling, and optimising for social search. The video stresses that marketers must embrace new technologies and adapt quickly to avoid falling behind.
- AI is crucial for marketing automation and ad optimisation.
- Engaging content, both short and long form, is key to capturing and retaining audience attention.
- Building trust through first-party data and authentic brand storytelling is essential.
- Social SEO is becoming increasingly important as younger audiences shift to social platforms for search.
The Marketing Evolution
The marketing landscape is rapidly changing, and strategies that worked in the past are becoming obsolete. To stay competitive, marketers need to adapt to new trends and technologies. The video promises to provide strategies to keep up with these changes, drawing insights from HubSpot's State of Marketing Report, which surveyed over 1,200 marketers worldwide. The full report is available for free download in the description for those seeking deeper insights.
Trend 1: AI Marketing Takeover
AI is transforming marketing by automating tasks and optimising strategies in real time. Marketers who aren't using AI risk falling behind as AI tools can generate content, optimise campaigns, and make data-driven decisions faster and more efficiently. To stay ahead, marketers should use AI tools like ChatGPT or HubSpot Breeze to generate content, test AI-generated content against human-written content, and use AI to track patterns and predict trends. The video references page 34 of the State of Marketing Report for those who want to learn how to measure AI's impact.
Trend 2: Capturing Attention in a Crowded Space
Capturing and maintaining audience attention is a major challenge. Short-form videos on platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are the best-performing content formats for businesses. Long-form video content, such as webinars, podcasts, and YouTube videos, sees significantly more engagement than blog posts alone. Social platforms reward engagement time, so it's important to create content that keeps people watching. The Hustle, HubSpot's Business Media brand, is highlighted as an example of an attention-first strategy, using long-form storytelling and business deep dives on YouTube. To stay ahead, marketers should create short-form videos, track engagement metrics, and repurpose content across multiple platforms. Short-form video hooks viewers, while long-form content builds deeper trust. Page 12 of the State of Marketing Report provides more insights on how top brands are shifting to an engagement-first strategy.
Trend 3: First-Party Data & The Trust Crisis
Consumers are losing trust in brands, making it more expensive to market effectively. With the disappearance of third-party cookies and rising ad costs, brands are turning to first-party data, such as email subscribers and loyalty programs, to drive engagement and lower ad costs. Brands that own their audience through email lists or community platforms are outperforming those that rely solely on paid ads. To stay ahead, marketers should collect emails and build their own audience, be transparent about data collection, and use first-party data for better personalisation. Page 11 of the State of Marketing Report offers more information on how brands are shifting to first-party data strategies.
Trend 4: Brands as Content Creators
People trust creators more than brands, leading smart brands to become content creators themselves. Traditional advertising is losing effectiveness, and consumers are more likely to buy from brands they connect with. 92% of marketers are shifting budgets from ads to brand-led content. Brands that work with content creators, such as UGC creators and micro-influencers, see significantly better results. To stay ahead, marketers should focus on educating, entertaining, and engaging their audience, work with micro-influencers, and build their brand's personality. Even luxury car brands like Jaguar are investing in social-first storytelling on TikTok and Instagram to appeal to younger audiences. Page 24 of the State of Marketing Report provides more insights on brand-led content strategies.
Trend 5: AI-Powered Ad Targeting
AI is transforming the ad landscape by optimising ads in real time. Marketers using AI-powered ad targeting are seeing lower ad costs, higher engagement, and more conversions with less effort. AI helps spend ad budgets more efficiently and learns from user behaviour to continuously improve ad performance. To stay ahead, marketers should use AI-powered ad tools like Meta's Advantage Plus and Google's Performance Max, test AI-driven audiences, and compare manual versus AI testing.
Trend 6: The SEO Shift to Social Platforms
More people are searching on TikTok and Instagram than on Google, especially among younger users. Google has reported a decline in product searches by Gen Z, as they are shifting their searches to social platforms. If content isn't optimised for social search, it's invisible to a massive audience. To stay ahead, marketers should use TikTok's search bar to find trending keywords, add searchable text to videos, and optimise hashtags. The video also recommends watching a TikTok SEO video for more strategies, linked at the end of the video.
How to Stay Ahead of the Curve
The marketing landscape is constantly evolving, and marketers must embrace new technologies and adapt quickly to avoid falling behind. Kit Bodner, CMO of HubSpot, emphasises the importance of continuous learning, testing, and evolving strategies. The next decade will be even more dynamic than the last, so marketers must be willing to move fast and embrace change. The full HubSpot State of Marketing Report is available for free download, and the HubSpot channel offers actionable marketing strategies every week. The video encourages viewers to subscribe and share their thoughts on which trend they are most excited or scared about in the comments.
