The new year is upon us! And knowing how busy things can get later on in the season, we didn’t want to waste any time getting prepared for 2017. That’s why, before the holidays – we wouldn’t want to barge in on anyone’s holiday plans – we asked several leaders from the sales and marketing industries to provide some feedback regarding their plans for the next cycle of the calendar. For this piece of the Expert Series, we focused on asking those individuals what marketing tactics they are looking forward to learning more about in 2017.

Here’s What They Had to Say:

I’m looking to create videos next year. It’s not something that I have done but I believe videos can offer a new way to create content and connect with target audiences. I’m also interested in creating e-books, which could replace some of the blogging that I do. 

– Mark Evans, Principal at Mark Evans Consulting, @markevans

This may sound odd, because video marketing is by no means a new tactic – but I think video consumption is changing dramatically, and I think brands like Buzzfeed and New York Times are doing an incredible job evolving their content along with it. The way social networks distribute and amplify video is interesting. I love the way one of our VPs of Marketing, Meghan Keaney Anderson, explains the phenomenon from a user’s perspective: “I don’t go searching for video anymore, videos seem to find me via social networks.” At HubSpot Academy, we’re no strangers to video. Our library of educational videos is stretching towards the thousands at this point, but they’re instructional videos geared towards online learners. There’s a new breed of video that seems to travel far and wide via social networks, and I’d like to see our team un-puzzle that content type in the coming year.

– Eric Peters, Sr. Growth Marketing Manager at HubSpot, @EricPeters0

Podcasting! 🙂 On the Buffer team we’re all major podcast fans and it’s been requested by our community multiple times. While we’re hoping to kick off a social media marketing podcast prior to 2017, I think we’ll have an even greater focus on podcasting next year. Or who knows, maybe a whole new social network could pop up! We’re always keen to try new things that reach a broader audience, plus we’re a curious bunch. 🙂 

– Hailley Griffis, PR Specialist at Buffer, @hailleymari

I’d say two things: website personalization and influencer marketing.

Websites are no longer one-size-fits-all. They need to become more personalized. We now have so much data available: what site our users came from, what keyword they Googled, what device they’re using, where they’re located – we need to take advantage of this to make for a more relevant user experience. Visit testing solution site Optimizely.com at night and you’ll see on their homepage the message “Still Awake? Let’s Optimize Digital Experiences for Your Customers”. That’s obviously a very basic example of personalization, but you get the idea. The possibilities are endless.

As for influencer marketing (IM), we’ve dabbled a bit with it for clients, but nothing too strategic. It’s about engaging influencers who have the ear of your audience, and seeing if there’s any way they can help promote your brand in a way that’s mutually beneficial. Influencers aren’t necessarily people with big social media followings, but rather people who can have impact on the decision-making process of their audience (e.g. purchasing decisions). I read a statistic that over 60% of marketing agencies plan to increase their budgets for IM in 2017, so it’s a growing trend that we should all be experimenting in.

– Robert Clarke, Director of Marketing at Op Ed Marketing, @robertclarkey

It’s hard to turn around these days without reading something about Account-Based Marketing (ABM) – and with good reason. 97% of marketers have said that ABM has a higher or much higher ROI than other marketing initiatives. By challenging marketers to flip the traditional sales funnel on its head and focus messaging, campaigns and outreach on a defined set of high-value accounts (rather than casting as wide a net as possible), ABM can help sales and marketing teams maintain a full pipeline. In 2017, we’ll be rolling out a full-fledged ABM strategy that focuses on building better relationships faster using great content experiences.

– Sam Brennand, Director of Customer Success at Uberflip, @SamBrennand

We want to keep diving into marketing automation. We’ve seen the amazing things you can do with Pardot, but you can always go deeper. We’d also love to do a virtual reality project and explore building and designing an immersive experience for the VR medium.

– Sourov De, Managing Partner at Stryve Digital Marketing, @Sourovde

In 2017, I will explore the concept of breaking through the status quo. I’ve been asking my clients what status quo they are trying to overcome and then addressing it in their copy. Many business decisions stall with buyers deciding not to do anything. If you can address their concerns and show them why the status quo doesn’t work, you’ll have an advantage.

– Rachel Foster, CEO and B2B Copywriter at Fresh Perspective Copywriting, @CopywriterTO

For 2017 we hope to explore more avenues of content marketing with the use of different forms such as video, templates and other training material. As we explore more verticals and service offerings, such as providing sales and marketing training, we will certainly have to create content and update our website to cater to our service expansions. 

In addition we also want to tighten our SEO practices to get the best results possible for ourselves and our clients. To do this we want to invest more time into examining different components of the SEO package to boost our site’s authority and visibility. 

– Tabitha David, Marketing Manager at Venture Accelerator Partners, @TabithaDavid

What new marketing tactics or strategies do you want to try in 2017? Let us know in the comments below.

In case you missed them, check our other posts in this year’s expert series blog – The Experts: B2B Marketing Tools of 2016 and The Experts: B2B Sales Tools of 2016.