The coronavirus pandemic has impacted all businesses in some way or another. In certain industries,...
Marketing is always changing, and with change comes the challenge to adapt.
AI, search engine rankings and the ever-lasting struggle between sales and marketing — there's plenty to keep marketers busy in 2024.
Let's explore some of marketing's key challenges for 2024 and what you can do to best prepare yourself for another year of significant change.
Standing out from the AI crowd
AI is everywhere, and getting your hands on it is easier than ever. It brings huge potential to your marketing strategies, empowering smaller teams, generating efficiencies and revolutionising processes.
But as its popularity and usage grow, there's a danger of marketing becoming saturated with AI-generated content.
It's no surprise that Google is beginning to penalise AI content as part of its March 2024 algorithm update to place a greater emphasis on unique, genuinely helpful content.
There’s also Google SGE (Search Generative Experience) to consider and its impact on content in 2024 and beyond.
Google SGE is essentially Google… but instead of presenting you with a results page you’re used to, it offers an answer to your query based on the trustworthy content it has access to.
Want to read more about Google SGE and read our advice on preparing for it? Click here.
Also making a splash in the AI space in HubSpot’s Content Hub. Content Hub is an all-in-one, AI-powered content marketing software that helps marketers create and manage content that fuels the entire customer journey.
Using Content Hub, you can easily create personalised content experiences that drive engagement and manage content assets at scale from a single source of truth.
The message remains the same AI; you'll probably need to bake it into your processes at some stage. You'll likely be left behind if you don't. But don't rely on it. It's great to get you started when you're writing content or generating ideas, but make sure to weave in your expertise and know-how to continue offering value to your audience.
After all, AI will never know your company, products or services better than you do.
Making AI work in your marketing
Another challenge is sticking with AI and making it work with your current set of processes.
AI and automation can help your business unlock never-before-seen efficiencies, but implementing them seamlessly and safely does present challenges.
It's hard to keep up with the ever-changing AI world, so consider setting up a dedicated AI task force to keep your finger on the latest updates and ensure safe AI use.
AI could be your greatest colleague in 2024, but only when used in the right way. One thing to reiterate is to keep that human touch in your marketing.
Mastering multi-channel
One of the main headaches for marketing managers is the number of plates that need spinning across several channels.
It's not always about trying to excel in every area but focusing on what brings the most value to your business. For example, if your company gets big results from its email marketing, it might be worth allocating more resources to it.
Here are some ways you can master multi-channel in your marketing:
- Adopting a customer-centric approach with your messaging
- Aligning your messaging, visual elements, tone of voice and branding across all assets and platforms
- Use automation and AI (such as the Content Hub) to give you a hand
- Use personalisation wherever you can to enhance customer engagement
- Consistently analyse performance, target areas for improvement and measure statistics against business goals
Multi-channel challenges are more likely to crop up for smaller teams, which is where it becomes more of a resource allocation issue rather than a talent one.
The key here is to use your data. Your analytics can tell you what works where and on which channels your time is best spent.
Leaning on platforms like HubSpot can help you master your marketing across multiple channels, as everything is housed under one roof.
Capturing attention
Attention. It's what all marketers are fighting for. As human attention spans continue to shorten, the challenge gets all the more difficult.
Marketing and advertising are everywhere, constantly fighting for our attention, and this battle can be the all-important difference between your business's success and failure.
Grabbing people's attention in the digital world is a skill that can't be overstated and your marketing depends on it.
Get to the point quickly, think about what would make your audience stop scrolling and hit those all-important customer pain points nice and early.
Also, don't be afraid to be a little different. Try new tactics and test, test, test.
Marketing and sales alignment
Not this again.
Yep, the old adage still rings true in 2024.
Strong sales and marketing alignment is critical for any business to thrive. According to HubSpot, 35% of marketers say a lack of communication between sales and marketing is their top challenge.
Bringing these two teams together should be top of your list if they aren't currently working in harmony.
The data that's shared between the teams should be consistent and there should be an effective line of communication that's open and accessible at all times.
- Create shared KPIs and tie goals together to encourage collaboration
- Ask marketing and sales to build buyer personas together
- Set up regular check-ins between marketing and sales
- Keep track of every interaction a customer has with your business (HubSpot can help you do this)
- Have sales inform marketing on what type of leads they need
Follow all of the above tips and you’ll foster a close working relationship between marketing and sales that encourages closer collaboration than ever before. If you want more on this, check out this talk post on the topic too.
Creating lead-generating content
It's one thing capturing the attention of potential customers, but converting them into leads is another challenge entirely.
Lead generation is now more difficult than ever with the sea of content available at everybody's fingertips.
It all stems back to producing content that actually offers value to your audience. AI is leaving consumers hungry for material that offers opinion or expertise, and it's a gap in the market that can make people sit up, notice your brand and trust in what you have to offer.
It's crucial to consider things outside your typical blogs, social posts and emails. Why not offer expertise through a webinar that users need to sign up for? Or incorporate interactive content on your website or social media?
Thinking outside the box and trying to move away from the ongoing conveyor belt of AI-generated content could give your business the boost it needs to get leads through the door.
Here are a few ways you can do this:
Embrace video
Video marketing is more powerful than ever and can be a great way to generate extra business. An incredible 92% of video marketers are satisfied with the ROI of their video marketing.
But plenty of marketing teams are struggling to get as much video content produced as they'd like. If you also feel this way, consider this:
Video is easier to produce than it's ever been in history. The cost of camera equipment, the ease and accessibility of editing software and the ability to share video files or content have become accessible to all.
This means the required standard of video production has also fallen dramatically, so you can make videos that are more natural, less polished and still fine to be seen in a social media feed.
Read more about how to get started whilst avoiding many common mistakes here.
Use personalisation
Speaking directly to your audience can have a huge impact and this has been made even easier in the age of AI. 89% of marketers see a positive ROI when they use personalisation in campaigns.
Personalisation can look like any of these:
- Highly personalised email topics via narrowly segmented lists of recipients based on the high amounts of data we know about contacts in our CRMs.
- Using CRM data inside email content itself to make the message personalised. For example, HubSpot email automation can change sender names and emails depending on the recipient automatically.
- Website navigation and user journeys, as well as on page content itself, can all be personalised to each user based on the knowledge you hold about the user's prior interaction with your content.
Invest in influencers (or use User Generated Content)
Influencer marketing is great for targeting Gen Z consumers especially; it’s essentially the new way of word-of-mouth marketing.
User-generated content (UGC) is also highly effective, with 84% of consumers saying they trust peer marketing over other advertising sources.
Encourage your customers and colleagues to post about your services or brand.
Wondering how you can address all of these challenges?
One way to achieve the above is by leaning on HubSpot's Marketing Hub. The all-in-one marketing software allows you to achieve your marketing goals and house all your marketing efforts under one roof.
Going one step further involves finding a partner that can help you deliver results that achieve these goals.
Choosing HubSpot's 5x Global Partner of the Year gives you the peace of mind that you're opting for a high-quality agency to address your current marketing headaches.
Click the link below and chat with a member of the Avidly team at a time that suits you.
