2016 Marketing TrendsThree experts on the biggest challenges—and opportunities—for marketers in the new year

What is everybody talking about in 2016? Are they focusing on the right things?

“A lot of people are asking me what’s gonna happen in 2016? What I’d like to see is companies focusing more on the relationship. I want to see them realizing that people are expecting for you to know who they are, now.”--Ted Rubin, Social Marketing Strategist, Speaker, CMO at Brand Innovators

“What we’re seeing is a real trend of simplification; de-siloing the marekting organization as much as possible and really looking to de-silo content, reduce the amount of content being produced, increase its impact, and really look at the channels and the strategies that are making the biggest movement in the business.”--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer, Content Marketing Institute

“We can always make things more complex. The real difficulty is how do we get great at a few strategic points of the customer’s journey… That’s gonna take simplification. It’s gonna take unification of the marketing groups working together across regions, product groups, functions in the business, and really a simplification of the overall marketing strategy.”--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer, Content Marketing Institute

“What can marketers do to get better information around lead attribution? If they can pinpoint which programs are successful, that’s where the efficiencies come into the business.”--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

“And then there’s velocity. The market is moving fast, competition is moving faster. How do we get to the point where we can produce collateral, content, assets, and events better, faster?”--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

Where do you anticipate marketers putting the biggest chunk of their budget in 2016?

“Where marketers will be putting their budgets will be in creating high-impact, owned media experiences, where we can add value to a consumer’s life and lay a valuable experience over the product or service.”--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer, Content Marketing Institute

“money will have to be put into not only the creation of the experience itself, but also the promotion of it. If we’re creating great experiences, we should promote them with advertising, with SEO, with press releases.”--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer, Content Marketing Institute

“Digital demand spending is still going to be king. We’ve proven the ROI around that. I do think there’s one area where we’re gonna see maybe a little bit of a pullback, at least in the B2B space, and that is in the area of mobile spending.”--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

What do you think will be the biggest challenges for marketers in 2016?

“Everything seems to be important and setting priorities is really part of the challenges. How do I look at what’s important and push those other things aside?”--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

“And then, how do you cut through the clutter? There’s just so much coming at the consumer. We have to get crisp and clear and very precise in the way we reach out to them.”--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

“Assuming we can actually build worthwhile experiences, how do we then scale that across regions and functions and products?”--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer, Content Marketing Institute

“You’re gonna have to simplify those workflow processes. All the different content-creating groups within Marketing are gonna have to become much more collaborative.”--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer, Content Marketing Institute

“All this information’s available digitally but most of us aren’t bothering to use it. We’re worried about bringing people to our pages, instead of going and seeing all the information they’re offering us on theirs.”--Ted Rubin, Social Marketing Strategist, Speaker, CMO at Brand Innovators

“You’re all being welcomed into the living room of all your customers and you’re not going! You’re trying to bring them to you. Go there see what they’re talking about; involve yourself in their conversations.”--Ted Rubin, Social Marketing Strategist, Speaker, CMO at Brand Innovators

What will be the hidden gems for marketers in 2016?

“The level of print mail in your mailbox these days is quite low. So differentiating through a great print piece or a print magazine is a hidden gem that no one’s exploring right now.”--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer, Content Marketing Institute

“Podcasts are an incredible opportunity right now. One of the more interesting things that I’ve seen lately is B2B organizations taking thought leadership programs and, rather than doing them as whitepapers, doing them as podcasts.”--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer, Content Marketing Institute

“One hidden gem will be low-production video. Consumers like it. It resonates with them. It takes a bit of the sales luster off and they get that.”--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

What tools should marketers be investing in to succeed in 2016?

“What I think is gonna be huge in 2016 is live streaming apps, like Periscope, Blab, and Meerkat. And you want to know why? Because it’s making video social.”--Ted Rubin, Social Marketing Strategist, CMO at Brand Innovators

“More and more people are looking internally at how work gets created. They’re saying, ‘What tools can improve the productivity of my team, to create better work, to create work faster?’”--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

“The tools that are gonna be really important in 2016 are gonna be based entirely around collaboration. As marketing teams merge and become more fluid, we’re gonna need tools to facilitate that collaboration.”--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Marketing Institute

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