Content Overload (and Other Marketing Challenges)

Worried that your brand is drowning in an ocean of digital content? Mark Schaefer, “chieftain” of {grow} and author of “Return On Influence,” “Tao of Twitter” and other books, points out in a recent blog post that new apps and filters are emerging to help consumers cut through the clutter and “make better content choices”—further challenging marketers to find new ways to get their messages through. He predicts that many businesses will migrate away from Facebook and over to “less noisy venues,” and brand managers will have to get more creative and develop new forms of content to stand out. Interactive video, he writes, is one area that’s “ripe for innovation.”

“By 2020, the amount of information on the Web is expected to increase by 600%,” Schaefer states in a Nov. 17 post. “The challenge of cutting through that overwhelming information density is THE marketing challenge for the next few years.” You can read more about the implications of “content shock” and other matters in Schaefer’s 2015 digital marketing trends for your consideration.

Schaefer further notes that “truly immersive technologies” (think Google Glass) will eventually become mainstream. “One leading developer told me that literally every Fortune 500 company has some sort of experimental [augmented reality] activity going on.” What will marketing look like, he wonders, “when there are no boundaries?”

Personal trackers—mobile apps and devices that allow consumers to track their activities and other aspects of their daily lives (think Fitbit, Moodpanda)—are already gaining traction among consumers, notes Ian Western, a digital advertising account exec with SayItSocial based in Wilmington, NC. He calls it the phenomena now known as the Quantified Self.

“Smartphones, smart watches, smart glasses and other wearable technologies can log anything from steps to sleep cycles,” Western points out. “Combine these personal analytics trackers with communications technologies and social media, and the result is a truly hyper-connected world flooded with masses of consumer data points.” And with that comes massive opportunities for advertisers to use this data to better identify their target market segment (people who share behavioral traits and aspirations as recorded by “life-logging” apps) and reach it more effectively with customized ads. “The potential to capitalize on the quantified self movement” Western writes, “is seemingly limitless.”

There is a flip side to all this, of course. There are privacy concerns and the risk that marketers, by knowing a bit too much and getting a little too close, could end up turning off the very same folks they are working so hard to attract. The challenge will be to balance those concerns against the ultimate goal of winning what Schaefer calls the “fight to be seen.”