Three marketing experts discuss the biggest trends and challenges for 2016. They emphasize focusing on customer relationships, simplifying strategies and content, and creating high-impact experiences. Budgets will focus on owned media and digital advertising. Challenges include setting priorities, cutting through clutter, and scaling experiences globally. Hidden gems include print, podcasts, and low-production video. Tools for success include live streaming apps, collaboration tools, and work management software.

1. 2016 Marketing Trends
Three experts on the biggest challenges—and
opportunities—for marketers in the new year

2. What is everybody talking about in 2016? Are they focusing
on the right things?

3. “A lot of people are asking me
what’s gonna happen in 2016?
What I’d like to see is companies
focusing more on the
relationship. I want to see them
realizing that people are
expecting for you to know who
they are, now.”
--Ted Rubin, Social Marketing
Strategist, Speaker, CMO at
Brand Innovators

4. “What we’re seeing is a real trend
of simplification; de-siloing the
marekting organization as much as
possible and really looking to de-silo
content, reduce the amount of
content being produced, increase its
impact, and really look at the
channels and the strategies that are
making the biggest movement in
the business.”
--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer,
Content Marketing Institute

5. “We can always make things more
complex. The real difficulty is how do
we get great at a few strategic points
of the customer’s journey… That’s
gonna take simplification. It’s gonna
take unification of the marketing
groups working together across
regions, product groups, functions in
the business, and really a
simplification of the overall marketing
strategy.”
--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer,
Content Marketing Institute

6. “What can marketers do to get
better information around
lead attribution? If they can
pinpoint which programs are
successful, that’s where the
efficiencies come into the
business.”
--Joe Staples, CMO at
Workfront

7. “And then there’s velocity.
The market is moving fast,
competition is moving
faster. How do we get to
the point where we can
produce collateral, content,
assets, and events better,
faster?”
--Joe Staples, CMO at
Workfront

8. Where do you anticipate marketers putting the biggest chunk of
their budget in 2016?

9. “Where marketers will be putting
their budgets will be in creating high-
impact, owned media experiences,
where we can add value to a
consumer’s life and lay a valuable
experience over the product or
service.”
--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer,
Content Marketing Institute

10. “money will have to be put into
not only the creation of the
experience itself, but also the
promotion of it. If we’re creating
great experiences, we should
promote them with advertising,
with SEO, with press releases.”
--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy
Officer, Content Marketing
Institute

11. “Digital demand spending is still
going to be king. We’ve proven
the ROI around that. I do think
there’s one area where we’re
gonna see maybe a little bit of a
pullback, at least in the B2B
space, and that is in the area of
mobile spending.”
--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

12. What do you think will
be the biggest
challenges for
marketers in 2016?

13. “Everything seems to be
important and setting priorities
is really part of the challenges.
How do I look at what’s
important and push those
other things aside?”
--Joe Staples, CMO at
Workfront

14. “And then, how do you cut
through the clutter? There’s just
so much coming at the
consumer. We have to get crisp
and clear and very precise in
the way we reach out to them.”
--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

15. “Assuming we can actually build
worthwhile experiences, how do we
then scale that across regions and
functions and products?”
--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer,
Content Marketing Institute

16. “You’re gonna have to simplify
those workflow processes. All
the different content-creating
groups within Marketing are
gonna have to become much
more collaborative.”
--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy
Officer, Content Marketing
Institute

17. “All this information’s available
digitally but most of us aren’t
bothering to use it. We’re
worried about bringing people
to our pages, instead of going
and seeing all the information
they’re offering us on theirs.”
--Ted Rubin, Social Marketing
Strategist, Speaker, CMO at
Brand Innovators

18. “You’re all being
welcomed into the living
room of all your
customers and you’re not
going! You’re trying to
bring them to you. Go
there see what they’re
talking about; involve
yourself in their
conversations.”
--Ted Rubin, Social
Marketing Strategist,
Speaker, CMO at Brand
Innovators

19. What will be the hidden gems for marketers in 2016?

20. “The level of print mail in your
mailbox these days is quite low. So
differentiating through a great
print piece or a print magazine is a
hidden gem that no one’s exploring
right now.”
--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy
Officer, Content Marketing Institute

21. “Podcasts are an incredible
opportunity right now. One of the
more interesting things that I’ve
seen lately is B2B organizations
taking thought leadership
programs and, rather than doing
them as whitepapers, doing them
as podcasts.”
--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy
Officer, Content Marketing
Institute

22. “One hidden gem will be low-
production video. Consumers like
it. It resonates with them. It takes
a bit of the sales luster off and
they get that.”
--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

23. What tools should
marketers be investing in to
succeed in 2016?

24. “What I think is gonna be huge
in 2016 is live streaming apps,
like Periscope, Blab, and
Meerkat. And you want to know
why? Because it’s making video
social.”
--Ted Rubin, Social Marketing
Strategist, CMO at Brand
Innovators

25. “More and more people are
looking internally at how work
gets created. They’re saying,
‘What tools can improve the
productivity of my team, to
create better work, to create
work faster?’”
--Joe Staples, CMO at Workfront

26. “The tools that are gonna be really
important in 2016 are gonna be
based entirely around collaboration.
As marketing teams merge and
become more fluid, we’re gonna
need tools to facilitate that
collaboration.”
--Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer,
Chief Marketing Institute

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