What Marketing Leaders Are Investing in This Year

In an ideal world, marketers would have unlimited budgets to invest in experimental initiatives and new programs. After all, the customer acquisition and retention landscape is evolving faster than ever before. The challenge, however, is that marketing budgets are often limited to what has been proven to work – what looks different from company to company.

This is why it is so important to have access to industry data. When we know where we are holding up against our colleagues and competitors, we are better positioned to uncover areas of opportunity. And with total marketing spend expected to grow 14% in 2021, you’ll definitely want to know what your competitors are doing.

In this post, we’re going to discuss data-driven areas where marketers are focusing their investments in 2021.

What marketing directors are investing this year

Growth marketing

The HubSpot Executive Marketing Leadership Survey asked respondents, “What areas of your marketing would you like your team to invest more in in 2021?” Most respondents said they wanted to spend more time on growth marketing.

In short, growth marketing describes the experiments and resulting processes that companies use to build and retain a customer base over time. This may include running A / B testing to ensure that all of your marketing efforts result directly from data that clearly explains your best practices for converting and retaining customers. This is closely related to conversion rate optimization, where you update your content to increase acquisition.

Growth marketing can also involve the use of design elements and unique content to connect your brand with your target audience and help you stay adaptable, consistent, and recognizable to your target market.

Selected resource: A data-driven approach to growth marketing

React fast

63% of marketing executives say the coronavirus pandemic has affected their teams’ productivity and responsiveness, and 11% say responding to global environments is an obstacle to productivity.

Because of this, marketers report that in 2021 they will invest more time to adapt and react quickly. Not only for changes in their industry, but also for global challenges that have proven to be more critical during the current pandemic.

Marketers say the main problems with responding quickly is developing unique, creative content quickly and adapting to trends quickly.

They say they will combat this problem by taking stock of their current content and creating a plan of action for future adjustments, interviewing their audience about their struggles, restructuring teams, and just being ready to make changes if problems arise, even one Notice right now.

Invest in marketing technology

60% of marketers said they will increase their marketing technology spend in the next 12 months. Investments in marketing technologies are directly related to the above marketing trends to respond with speed and growth marketing as they help marketers keep and excite their audiences and react quickly when needed.

Refresh refers to marketing technology, often referred to as martech, the software and technology used to attract and retain customers. From 2020, there will be 8,000 different Martech tools to choose from, from data analysis platforms and CRMs to internal tools for team collaboration.

Regardless of the tools they use, a martech tech stack helps marketers streamline their processes and systematically organize their day-to-day activities. As remote working becomes more prevalent, access to these technologies will make it easy for teams to work together regardless of physical location.

Selected resource: This way you stay on the cutting edge of technology

Further investments in diversity marketing

At the beginning of 2020, many companies came to a settlement, as in the first few months of the year the focus of the discussions was on issues of social justice.

Today more than ever, consumers are concerned about corporate attitudes towards public issues, demanding change from brands and an awareness of diversity, equity and inclusion. One way of seeing this in companies is through diversity marketing.

It is an effective practice for marketers to commit, especially given that people are more likely to consider a product after seeing an ad they think is diverse or inclusive, and 64% actually take action after it saw an ad that they think is diverse and inclusive.

Therefore, in 2021, marketers will make further and improved efforts to focus on diversity marketing and be representative of the communities they serve to increase their revenues and keep their businesses alive.

With this in mind, however, it is even more important that companies take the diversity measures they have taken seriously. Consumers can see through the fluff, and a recent survey found that 59% of consumers believe that companies need to take action to follow up their diversity claims or risk being viewed as exploitative and opportunistic. Read this post to see examples from companies that have illustrated the practice of inclusive marketing.

personalization

Personalization is the way you interact with your audience and customers in ways that feel individual as you use data and buyer personalities to create content tailored to their preferences and interests.

While 80% of consumers are more likely to shop when brands deliver personalized experiences, marketers like this practice. 96% of them say it helps build customer relationships. With this in mind, Think With Google names personalization as a focus for marketers in 2021.

How can marketers prepare? Take advantage of the other trends on this list – investing in marketing technologies to help you personalize, such as powerful data analytics platforms to get information about customer preferences, and email marketing services that let you know the messages you get on with customers. can personalize. Additionally, the focus on and commitment to diversity marketing ensures that your target audiences are interacting with material that they can relate to and that is relevant to their interests.

Use these trends together with other market leaders.

While this is not an exhaustive list, marketers are focusing on and investing in the above trends for 2021. Understand how each trend is affecting your business and join other marketers in making these investments.

To learn more about the state of marketing in 2021, read this post to hear directly from marketers about trends to expect over the course of the year.