What is Marketing About in 2019? Insights From 10 Marketing Professionals

One thing every marketer can never have too much of is information. Industry insights, customer data, sales trends, customer reviews etc – successful marketers are always searching for that one particular data or sets of data that will give them the opportunity to establish a connection with their customers’ minds or hearts.

The best way to identify valuable trends and insights is by tapping into the knowledge of seasoned and savvy marketing professionals.

To this purpose, I invited 10 marketing professionals to share their insights. Together they have a combined experience of 140 years in the marketing trenches.

What is marketing about in 2019?

10 marketing professionals share their insights.

1. Nina Bratfalean – Marketing Manager, BMW Group

Triple E (EEE) and EWY. Engagement and Exclusive Experiences. Everything With You.

“Money can’t buy” experiences and customers engagement; those will be the highlights of the year, together with “everything you need with you” because BMW will be connected with the life of every person who chose the brand. Choosing to drive a BMW will bring joy in every moment they will be spending with their BMW while also making each journey easier.

Starting with 2019 BMW will introduce the highly anticipated Connected Drive to Romania. Internationally, BMW is designing new mobility concepts. Everything will be direct, integrated and transparent, which is opposite to the moderation you are used to. From now on, you will hear us saying “no guts, no glory”, you will also see that our communication will be more selective and interconnected with each and every step our customers take towards a completely digital CDJ (customer decision journey).

2. Andreas Elsner – Chief Officer, Residential Marketing and National Sales, Telekom Romania

Marketing in 2019 will entirely revolve around the customer.

Companies will have to produce more personalized marketing content and be able to offer customers amazing, unique experiences.

And this will be possible by getting to know the customers better.

It will be crucial for marketers to find out customers’ communication preferences and deliver them creative, meaningful and valuable content.

Brands will no more be vendors, but trusted partners.

3. Calin Biris – Partner, Loopa Marketing Agency

Visual & audio content + Automation.

For a small to medium company, this year can be about investing in visual and audio content that will be used in a smart and integrated way with the other marketing channels like e-mail, messaging, social media and ads. For example, a start-up could become well known if it will create a podcast or a YouTube channel about its niche or domain that will get traction (many subscribers and listeners). But this is only the tip of the iceberg, or let’s call it the cool part of marketing. For the start-up to get sales it will need to do advertising and have a good sales funnel, because content marketing it’s a long-term investment.

If we are talking about big companies that already have a working sales funnel and marketing action plan, what will be cool to do more this year is looking for ways to use automation in Social Media or in an Inbound marketing strategy.

4. Tara Hunt – CEO, Truly Inc.

The year of the reckoning for advertising.

I’m calling 2019 the year of reckoning for advertising – especially the practice of social platform ads – because of the growing revelations around click fraud and the realization that the metrics the industry has long relied on (impressions, reach and even engagement) are pretty useless.

Many brands are going to continue to see a decline in real results, which will leave them wondering what to do next.

My hope is that this will open up the long overdue conversation around accountability and goals in marketing that leads to a resetting of what we measure and how we approach the practice.

And my dream outcome of this will be for brands and marketers to stop chasing millions and billions of impressions and get back to the core definition of marketing: connecting companies with customers through understanding the market, development of the right product, finding the right channels to distribute, and creating the right strategy.

5. Ann Handley – Digital Marketing and Content Expert

In 2019, the email newsletter will re-emerge as an important nurturing tool.

Companies will treat their email newsletter programs like the rare and precious flowers they are, in need of regular tending and attention. That means they will water newsletter audiences with a sprinkler, not a firehose.

“Hold up,” you’re thinking. “EMAIL? Is this 1999 or 2019? Isn’t this the age of AI and Facebook Live and video?”

Here’s why I believe in the power of email newsletters even more strongly today, in 2019:

1) An email newsletter is the only place where individuals—not algorithms—are in control. So what if marketing leaned into that inherently personal space?

2) Most companies today use their email newsletter as a distribution strategy. What if we focused not on the news but on the letter?

In January I relaunched my personal newsletter (annhandley.com/newsletter) as a way to talk directly to my audience. It’s taught me a lot about what works and what doesn’t in content and in marketing. Because I think the best email newsletters are also a kind of proxy for the best marketing in 2019, period.

6. Andrada Borda – Marketing Manager, BRAND MINDS & Digitalium

Less about mass audiences and more about niche targeting.

I believe that brands are starting to value the role their audiences play in the way they communicate on a deeper level. And when I say audiences, I mean the diverse and unique user profiles we are targeting because these days few things are about mass audiences and many are about niche targeting.

A brand’s communication strategy that once was prepared for a collective audience will now be split in two, three or more individual approaches, depending on the profile types that consume the brand’s product or service.

And that’s where you find the real challenge: to find and create ways to communicate for different types of audiences while maintaining your brand archetype, personality and values.

How would you speak in their language while keeping yours?

7. Chris ‘Kubby’ Kubbernus – Chief Executive Officer & Founder, Kubb&co

Marketing in 2019 is really what it has always been about. Relevance.

How relevant is your brand and how relevant are your communications/content/marketing in today’s culture. And that’s not to say that you need to be famous.

But you need to be relevant to your customers, their needs and what’s on their minds. And often this changes very fast, so being agile, understanding your customers and then being able to act on that is key.

8. Antoine Dupont – Co-owner & CEO, Katapult Marketing

2019 is the year where the control of the narrative has shifted from the marketer to the people.

The consumer has become increasingly vocal by how they engage and share their feelings about a company or a brand. More than half of the conversation about a brand is happening without the brand itself. Think about it for a minute. The brand used to have 100% control of the narrative about their brand. This is no longer the case.

To that end, brands and companies, now more than ever, need to nurture and respect the audience. They are sophisticated and expect to be treated with respect & dignity.

The brands that will win in 2019 will be the one who spends more time asking & listening rather than pitching & selling. Here is what people are saying: stop robocalling me, stop spamming me and stop funnelling me. Treat me like a HUMAN.

9. Nicole Yale – Global Account Director, Client Services – VaynerMedia

2019 is about bottom-up marketing at scale.

Digital can’t be ignored- we’ll see continued integration with other channels, but content marketing will also drive activity across touchpoints.

Marketers are realising the power of online data, near-instant access to consumer feedback, and the impact to be had in leveraging audience insights. It’s bottom-up marketing at scale- test, learn, amplify- to create work that’s more relevant and effective.

10. Ana Maria Bajan – Marketing Director, Caroli Foods Group

Marketing in 2019 will be FANTASTIC.

2019 will be: FANTASTIC

Fan for bringing added value in the life of the consumers;

Assurance for your brand – make sure your brand is the first who conquers the heart of the consumers;

Nurture your communication channels with personalized messages;

To be easy to access & easy to use;

Automation is the key to effective marketing;

Stay relevant to your consumers;

Target your consumers effectively and efficiently;

Ignite your brand/category/business with a purpose;

Communicate transparently and instantly if possible with your consumers.

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