A List Of Top Marketing Automation Trends That Promise To Drive Growth!

*This write up was originally published on WebEngage Blog

Here are the top trends that will influence and dominate the Marketing Automation industry this year.

1) Marketing Automation will continue to grow going into 2018

As marketers begin to realize the value and potential of Marketing Automation, they are increasing their investment on MarTech. Based on predictive analysis of data, Marketers are expected to spend as much as 32 billion US$ in 2018 on Marketing Automation software.

Opportunity

• The number of Marketing Automation vendors grew 36% in 2017, a clear indicator of the burgeoning market demand.
• According to Salesforce’s “State of Marketing 2017” report, there will be a 21% growth over the next 2 years in the number of marketers using Marketing Automation.
• The report also stated that 67% of marketing leaders are using Marketing Automation in their strategy. Other businesses can try to emulate tactics deployed by market leaders to achieve similar levels of success.
• Marketing Automation has come to be recognized as an essential tool for improving bottom line growth, with over 70% of Indian marketers using it primarily for improving their lead conversion rate.

Where’s The Catch?

Securing a sizeable budget, and creating a sound strategy for Marketing Automation will continue to be dodgy as some decision makers might be split on the idea. Some Marketers continue to associate Marketing Automation Platforms as high-maintenance, complex systems that are formidable to master.

2) Personalized Content Will Reign Supreme

Context will be the driving force behind business growth. Consumers are demanding relevant experiences from the brands they interact with. They expect brands to know their likes and preferences, and come up with intelligent product recommendations that are worth their while.

Opportunity

• By combining social listening, user attributes, on-site behavioral attributes and past purchase data, marketers have a fantastic opportunity to formulate a highly accurate customer profile.
• Understanding user preferences and buying habits will help brands move beyond segmentation and personalization, and enter the realm of hyper-personalization and predictive recommendations.
• Personalized content will be the key ingredient in a brand’s retention marketing efforts. It can help brands rack up their customer loyalty index, ensuring that business doesn’t get lost to competition.

Where’s The Catch?

Creating and executing hyper-personalized campaigns at scale for a really massive user base will be the real challenge. Marketing Automation platforms that integrate seamlessly with online businesses and collect user data at various points will be instrumental here by letting users personalize large-scale campaigns easily.

3) Smarter Marketing Automation: Machine Learning + AI Assisted Platforms

Predictive Personalization will be the pot of gold at the end of the Marketing Automation rainbow in 2018. Netflix and Starbucks are already up and running with recommendation engines that use AI + Machine Learning to create hyper-personalized experiences for customers. Their growth is proof enough that predictive personalization is the way ahead.

Opportunity

• In 2018, marketers will start to use machine learning in content creation. Machine Learning and data will work together to boost engagement efficiency.
• Once a user clicks an ad, the underlying user, and behavioral data will be consumed by Machine Learning systems and used in future campaigns and touch-points as the user progresses in their life-cycle.
• Similarly, AI-assisted platforms will proliferate and technologies like Natural Language Processing & Deep Learning will be leveraged to automate the study of user behavior, online activity, understanding speech and language patterns to create hyper-personalized user personas.

What’s The Catch?

A commercially viable AI + Machine Learning end-all, be-all solution is still in the works. Larger brands have the manpower and financial resources to create their own system, but other businesses will have to wait before they find a simplified plug-and-play system. If you know of any such software that is already making waves in the industry, please drop a word in the comments below.

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