The Marketing of Tomorrow

What's ahead for marketing tomorrow?

Writing for Forbes.com, Kimberly Whitler, a professor at the University of Virginia, asked CMOs for their predictions. 

She discovered:

• "B2B influencer marketing" will become all the rage. CMOs will turn to popular business authors, speakers, podcasters, and executives with large followings and pay them to hawk their products.

• CMOs will also begin to rely more on employees to spread brand messages through social, knowing they can speak more effectively than ads. And, because buyers hang out on many social platforms, CMOs will begin to think "multichannel first."

• B2B CMOs will embrace "account-based marketing," but not without a struggle, because it's hard to influence every decision-maker on every buying committee. To that end, CMOs will begin to use a "recommendation engine" like the one used by Netflix.

• Design will become the key brand differentiator, because big data is now just a "commodity." And educational content will become king. Unfortunately, CMOs will produce too much of it for buyers to absorb.

• CMOs will quit focusing on new martech (although thousands of new martech products will flood the marketplace). CMOs will focus instead on cybersecurity. They're spending up to 25% of their budgets on social, and have made their companies targets for cybercriminals.

• 30% of CMOs will be fired next year, because they lack the ability to drive results. Polish that resume!

Good Things

Good things, when short, are twice as good.

                                                           

— Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom

The Jesuits taught me, if you use a lot of words to express a thought, you're not thinking very hard.

Or you're covering your ass.

As Polonius said, "Brevity is the soul of wit."

As Dorothy Parker said, "Brevity is the soul of lingerie."

Digital Natives: Getting Restless?

Evidence to the contrary, Millennials and Gen Zers want to communicate face-to-face, according to new survey findings from Randstat.

At least 4 of 10 do.

The company asked 4,066 of these digital natives to identify the most effective way to communicate.

Face-to-face took the top spot (39%).

Face-to-face was trailed by e-mail (16%), phone (11%), instant messaging (10%), text messaging (7%), social media (7%), videoconference (6%), and online portals (4%).

Lamentably, 6 of 10 Millennials and Gen Zers prefer tech to communicate.

"It comes as no surprise that technology is one of the biggest driving factors enabling collaboration today," the report states.

"However, while social and collaborative tools are intrinsically part of the picture, the study drives home the critical need for in-person communication and cooperation as a fundamental aspect for our youngest generations."

Sunday Will Never be the Same

Sunday is the best day to publish a blog post, says martech provider TrackMaven.

The firm analyzed over 65,000 business blog posts published between September 2015 and August 2016.

Its new report, How to Build a Better Blog Than Your Competitors, claims Sunday is the prime day to publish. 

TrackMaven also says 3 pm Eastern Time is the best hour to publish.

We've long known blogging pays off. Marketers who blog get 67% more leads than marketers who don’t, according to Hubspot.

We now know blogging on Sunday does, too.

Remembering Sallie

May 1861. West Chester, Pennsylvania.

The men of the 11th Pennsylvania adopt a Staffordshire Terrier as their mascot and name her Sallie, after a pretty girl who'd appear every Sunday to watch them drill.

After 11 months of training, the regiment is shipped to Virginia, where it sees its first fight at Cedar Mountain. Sallie accompanies the men into battle, dodging the fierce Southern fire and grabbing at spent bullets as they strike the earth around her.

She repeats that performance at Second Manassas, South Mountain and Antietam, where she receives a scorch mark through her hair from a Confederate bullet.

After the Battle of Fredericksburg, Sallie gets a chance to march in review with the regiment past President Lincoln, who doffs his stovepipe hat when he spots her.

At Gettysburg, she loses her regiment on the first day, and is trapped behind enemy lines. She returns to the spot where she'd become separated from the 11th, and lies there three days, keeping vigil over dead Pennsylvanians until a member of the regiment finds her, nearly starved to death. Friends nurse her back to health.

Sallie is again struck by a bullet in May 1864 at Spotsylvania, and left with a bright scar on her neck. But the dog is undaunted. She travels with the 11th to the trenches before Petersburg.

On February 7, 1865, Sallie's luck runs out. She is shot through the brain during a skirmish at Dabney’s Mill. Gravediggers bury her on the spot.

In 1890, when the survivors of the Pennsylvania 11th reunite at Gettysburg for the dedication of their battlefield monument, they find a surprise.

“The 11th Pennsylvania has a grand monument to mark their line of battle,” one veteran writes. “A bronze soldier on top, looking over the field, while the dog, Sallie, is lying at the base keeping guard.”

Please honor veterans this weekend.