What will happen to digital marketing in 2024?

Digital marketing has been developing in recent years. What will digital marketing be like in 2024? Let's see what the author says~

The myth of Internet technology giant WeWork has been shattered. WeWork, once regarded as the originator of shared office space, has filed for bankruptcy protection in New Jersey, USA. At its peak, the company’s market value once reached 340 billion yuan, but it is regrettable that it has now fallen from the altar.

With the withdrawal of Wework, the Internet and technology industry circles will further return to rationality and begin to think about the underlying business logic. What is the right path? What kind of business model does this society need?

2023 is about to pass. Looking ahead to 2024, in which areas should marketers focus their efforts?

01

Focus marketing investments on key products with high profit outputs.

A good business model must be based on excellent products and customer experience. Product is 1 and marketing is 0. Even if you have a product but don’t actively market it, the product may still sell well. However, if you only have marketing but no excellent products, you can only make one transaction and may even lower the user’s impression of the brand, which in turn affects the user’s purchase of other products.

For companies with multiple products, the first priority is to follow the 2/8 rule when planning marketing expenses, spending marketing investment on key products with high sales and high profits, but at the same time paying attention to the full life cycle management of customers. What does it mean? After a wave of active and effective marketing activities, the promotion of many products has a surge in demand, but the back-end supply chain is unable to deliver the goods in time, and the revenue generated in that year actually has to be delivered in the next year, resulting in a lack of user experience in after-sales.

Therefore, when planning these marketing activities, marketers must also communicate well with sales staff and supply chain personnel, and make overall plans from the perspective of the customer's full-process experience.

02

An enterprise’s digital marketing must cover comprehensive digital upgrades from products, pricing, channels to marketing communications.

In the past, we focused more on the digitalization of marketing communications, such as using WeChat, mobile apps, mini programs and other mobile media for marketing, establishing connections and interactions with end users, and thus stimulating purchasing desire.

However, an enterprise’s digital marketing must be a systematic project, from front-end product definition, research and development, to market launch, to price analysis and pricing, to the expansion and management of digital channels. Promotion to the market and end users is already the final link.

Marketers need to have ecological and systematic thinking capabilities, and participate in key corporate projects from the product stage to the final marketing communication output stage to more practically solve user pain points. Communication means, methods and content can also be more accurate and in line with the needs of target customers.

At this point, the communication between front-end product marketing, pricing personnel, channel personnel and marketing communications personnel is usually disconnected, and further communication and cooperation need to be strengthened.

03

Offline activities are gradually resuming and still occupy an important position in corporate marketing activities.
Exhibitions are a huge industry. Whether it is large-scale domestic front-line events, such as the China International Import Expo and the China International Chain Expo, or many vertical industry exhibitions such as the Aviation Expo and the Glass Expo, they are all good opportunities for brands to establish government relations, tap potential customers, deepen existing partnerships and expand brand influence.

Epidemic control was fully implemented last year, but the marketing budgets of many companies did not keep up. One reason was the continued sluggish overall economy and weak overall sales. The other was layoffs and budget cuts to control corporate expenditures. Companies followed suit and were more cautious in marketing spending, paying more attention to performance marketing and return on investment (ROI) in marketing investment.

2024 will be the year of recovery for the exhibition industry. Companies' confidence in the economy will continue to be boosted, and exchanges between brands and partners such as customers and suppliers will need to be further increased. Exhibitions are a good opportunity to gather partners from upstream and downstream of the industrial chain and deepen cooperation. Therefore, companies are expected to further increase their budget investment in offline event marketing.

04

The use of AI in corporate marketing will increase further and has broad room for development.

At this CIIE, I had many exchanges with Metaverse, an AI marketing service provider. The application of artificial intelligence in marketing will increase further, and they have the ability to couple with traditional marketing activities. For example, in corporate exhibitions, the virtual scenes of Metaverse can be implanted on site. There is no need for real people to be present to introduce each product, but digital people can be used instead, saving a lot of costs for on-site staff to introduce the products. At the same time, the introduction of the highlights of the exhibited products and technologies will be more accurate and efficient. The speeches of executives at on-site events can also be replaced by digital avatars of real people.

This combination of virtual and real is believed to be more fascinating than pure reality or pure online virtual scenes. I have written many articles on the application of AIGC in marketing. If you are interested, you can check out the previous articles of this public account. I will not go into details here.

The further application of AI in marketing is of course far more than just "reducing costs and increasing efficiency". There is also huge room for development in improving user experience and stimulating corporate innovation. Whether it is a new customer experience in a virtual scene or a company's use of the latest technology for marketing innovation, it plays a vital role in stimulating the innovation vitality of the entire company.

Overall, companies' confidence in the market recovery in 2024 will further increase, and the overall investment in marketing expenses and digital marketing will also increase further. Marketing investment will be focused on high-profit products, and marketing digitalization will cover all-round upgrades of products, pricing, channels and marketing communications, increase the application of artificial intelligence, and resume offline activities. This will be the marketing development trend in 2024.

Author: Zhu Jingyu WeChat Official Account: Jade Talks About Digital Marketing