Five Digital-Marketing Predictions That Fizzled In 2014
This article is by Troy Ireland, managing partner at Digital Current, a conversion-based digital-marketing agency specializing in content marketing and SEO.
Tis the season to wax poetic about the year we are leaving behind and to make grandiose predictions about the year ahead. While I enjoy these endeavors as much as anyone, isnt it a lot more fun to analyze the projections that went bust?
Last January, there was a blizzard of buzz about digital marketingand for good reason. Those of us in this arena are experiencing a heady, exciting time. The technology is finally sharp and readily available, and hoards of hungry marketers are eager to test the wares, experiment with their words and ideas and attempt to push the trends to the next level. Some of these ideas, such as people-based research, brand advocacy and real-time marketing, achieved enormous breakthroughs this past year.
Other predictions, well, they completely fizzled, such as those predicting the death of banner ads. (Anyone with a computer knows the state of that one). Or what about wearables? A year ago, everyone was aflutter with the notion that Google Glass would launch a wearable marketing craze. That failed. We may, however, soon see wearables coming back to the forefront with the pending Apple Watchtime will tell how consumers ultimately take to this productand its many current and pending competitors.
Some predictions werent all hot air, but they never quite got off the ground. For instance, many predicted 2014 would be the year native advertising would take off. While we are pretty darn close, it certainly hasnt hit mainstream yet. That, I believe, will come in 2015 (theres my prediction). In fact, it seems we are at just the beginning of a golden age for native advertising and brand publishing. By the end of 2014, BI Intelligence data shows native ad spending will have hit approximately $7.9 billionand it will grow to $21 billion by 2018.
Growth hacking and mobile-first design are two more predictions still hovering on the verge of success. Growth hacking is experiencing great success with startups but, again, it hasnt quite broken into mainstream yet. And, as designers are still trying to figure out how to cram everything into mobile, holiday sales derived from mobile-first design have been sluggish.
Whacking at failed predictions is a lot more enjoyable as party banter, so I asked a few online marketing experts to share their thoughts on prophecies (their own and otherwise) that never quite materialized in 2014:
Neil Patel (co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics): My biggest prediction for 2014 was that extremely thorough content such as 10,000if not 30,000 word guideswould be extremely popular. And although people did enjoy reading these guides, they werent much more popular than a thorough blog post. The main reason the predication failed was because it was information overload. Its rare for people to be able to sit down and read 30,000 words, which is roughly the same length as a short book.
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Five Digital-Marketing Predictions That Fizzled In 2014