As a digital marketing agency, you probably started your year filled with plans to give your audience better quality this year. Produce authentic, more relevant and better content and deliver a more personalized experience. Running a leaner marketing program, because less is more – right?
Where Marketing Resolutions Meet Reality
These should have been the digital marketing agency’s New Year’s resolutions. And the chances are that you already have given up on all of these good intentions by now. Just like you have probably done on Dry January. By now you have most likely defaulted to your usual agency’s bad behavior. Having your in-house team pumping out endless amounts of creative content, across as many channels as possible. Using AI tools to do content creation even faster. Leading to an even bigger tsunami of social media posts to bombard people with.
Gartner’s Forecast: The 2024 Digital Marketing Landscape
A recent publication from Gartner on the trends for 2024 will maybe refresh the commitment to your New Year’s intentions again. Those trends paint a gloomy picture for the digital marketing profession and digital marketing agency teams. Gartner is predicting that by 2025, a perceived decay in the quality of social media sites will push 50% of consumers to significantly limit their use of major platforms.
Over 70% of consumers expect AI to negatively impact social & paid media channels. Many social channels have already begun to incorporate AI in their digital strategy, which has the potential to hasten the perception of diminished quality. As a result, consumers are actively limiting their use of major platforms.
The Overwhelming World of Digital Advertising
Can we blame consumers that they are cutting back on social media consumption? Not really. At present, people already see roughly 5,000 ads per day. There are 5.3 trillion display ads shown online every year. On average, children see 20,000 thirty-second commercials each year.
Adults see an average of 2 million of those on a yearly basis. No wonder people are tired. As a creative agency, you need to realize you are up against those numbers. And merely cranking up the volume is not going to make your message hit home.
The Rising Importance of Consumer Trust for Marketing Agencies
Gartner even takes its predictions a step further than that. As AI becomes more prevalent in digital marketing, Gartner predicts that addressing consumer trust and confidence issues will become a significant challenge.
A segment of customers may shift their behaviors and seek out AI-free, “acoustic” leading brands that prioritize authenticity and ethics. Global brands that embrace acoustic positioning & strategic thinking can differentiate themselves and potentially target premium or safety-focused markets.
The Fitness Regimen for Your Digital Strategy
So, you better get back to doing those push-ups, cutting out alcohol and getting those daily 10K steps in. As well as getting your performance marketing strategy in shape. If you don’t get fit soon, a new ‘acoustic’ digital agency will emerge and have you and your campaigns for breakfast. Consumers are fed up with fake news, lack of quality and endless heaps of spam. It’s our responsibility as marketers to give them better.
