Digital Marketing Trends

Digital marketing is one of the areas of marketing which is constantly changing and rapidly growing. According to the experts' assessments, the total cost of digital marketing worldwide will amount to approximately 130 billion USD in 2014, encompassing more than 22% of the total advertising market, which represents a growth of almost 18% in comparison with the previous year. This paper discusses experts' assessments according to which investment into mobile marketing will reach 16 billion USD, which is an increase of almost 80% on the annual level. In this regard, the authors have presented the main trends in digital marketing, with a reference to their advantages and disadvantages. One of the main trends in 2014 is the so-called content marketing, where special emphasis is placed on the content, as well as on a multi-channel communication with customers. The authors also describe the use of short video clips which draw the customers' attention to a product or a service by means of various internet services for the exchange of the video content. However, the most important emphasis is placed on the mobile segment of marketing which is progressing rapidly and has become one of the key factors in the further development of digital marketing. A mobile phone is a gadget most frequently used by consumers who always keep it at hand, and as such it is the ultimate marketing tool. In this paper the authors also explain the increasingly popular term of augmented reality, i.e. a sort of a real-time live view of the physical environment whose elements are supplemented by means of computer-generated sensory data such as audio and video data, images or GPS data. Everything that a customer needs to get in touch with the augmented reality are devices he/she already possesses in the form of a camera and any type of a screen. Simply put, the augmented reality allows the digital content to be discreetly shown and intertwined with our perceptions of the real world. The last, but not the least important trend described in this paper is customer relationship management (CRM), which in 2014 will be lifted to a higher level. It will be used to become even more acquainted with the customers by collecting and segmenting a large quantity of information, because the customers are almost always online, and because of the most important feature of CRM: everything is easily measurable and adaptable to achieve optimal results. Finally, the authors' aim was to highlight that in 2014 digital marketing will not even closely resemble that from 2013. The creation of new platforms and services on a daily basis has forced the existing social networks and other virtual meeting places to regularly introduce new options and features.