[Build Backlinks Online] Bacon, Burritos, and the Future of Marketing

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Bacon, Burritos, and the Future
of Marketing'

Posted by Hannah Smith
You heard it here first:Burritos are the new bacon.
Bacon is *so* last year.
Not so long ago if you wanted to create content to capture the hearts and minds
of the internet at large, bacon would be your topic of choice.
However, today, dear friends, you might be better off working burritos into
your content. We've seen runaway successes likeTiny Hamsters Eating Tiny
Burritos,Classic Love Scenes Improved by Burritos, and whenburritos are made
incorrectly (yes, apparently this happens) we see anoutpouring of rage likethis.
Dear reader, I amof course kidding.Sadly, the future of marketing is not
burritos.
In truth, dear reader, asmuch as I'd love to tell you the future of marketing
is as straight-forward as a particular foodstuff, I'd be doing us all a grave
disservice.
I got to thinking about this particular topic a few months ago when prepping
for SMX Munich. I've been working in this industry for about 7 years, which
makes me a comparative youngster, but nonetheless, during that time we've seen
huge changes.
Remember when keyword density was a thing?
You'd see these sites which huge, apparently empty footers. You'd hit ctrl+a to
reveal the densely packed keywords in text the same colour as the background.
Remember how strongly weighted anchor text was?
It was so strongly weighted, we were able to do stuff like this:

Over the years there have been many updates, andsome of the most interesting
include:2009: Vince saw big brands get a boost
2010: Caffeine saw a new web indexing system
2011: Panda saw a crackdown on "thin" content
2012: Venice saw localised results ranking for general or broad queries without
a geographic modifier
2012: Penguin saw a crackdown on low quality links
2013: Hummingbird saw a move from indexing to understanding
All of which means that, today, search queries which shouldn't work do in fact
work:

This is the sort of query my dear Mother has been typing into search engines
for years. Historically these sorts of queries simply didn't yield the results
she was looking for. Today, with increasing frequency, they do.
These sorts of developments are unquestionably good for users, however they may
not be quite so good for publishers who rely on ad revenue, and indeed for
brands.

A search like this will yield the result directly in the SERP;there's no need
to click through to a website. There are many other examples of this:
Try queries like "how many calories in an egg", or "how tall is Jason
Priestley".
But it's not just informational queries that have been affected by changes to
the SERPs. A search for "flights from London to Munich" sees the first organic
result pushed way below the fold:

It's fair to say that it's getting a lot tougher out there.But it's not just
search that's changing...
Wearable tech is causing a stir
Not too long ago, a woman named Sarah Slocum claimed to have beenattacked for
wearing GoogleGlass in a bar in San Francisco. There have been many conflicting
accounts of what actually happened that night, and I'm not in a position to
comment either way. However,what I think is interesting is the backlash which
has ensuedagainst this technology.
As a result, many establishments are banning customers from usingGoogleGlass in
their premises.
Just to be clear, I'm not necessarily saying that GoogleGlass usagewon't ever
be accepted, but it's important to understand thatwhen humans and technology
collide, things get complicated.
Regardless of the future of GoogleGlass, device usage is changing
Mobile used to mean "away from your PC," but today, 77% of mobile searches are
completed in a location where a PC is available (source).
We alsomulti-screen:
57% of the time when we're using a smartphone we're also using another device
67% of the time when we're using a PC we're also using another device
75% of the time when we're using a tablet we're also using another device
77% of the time when we're watching TV we're also using another device
TV doesn't mean *on* a TV anymore
5% of homes in the US don't have a TV, and thiszero-TV group is growing. The US
had more than 5million zero-TV households in 2013, up from 2million in 2007. But
that doesn't mean they're not watching TV: 67% justget their TV content on other
devices.
Why?
Traditional TV scheduling limits people who don't want limits. They want to
watch TV whenever and wherever it suits them.
This means TV advertising is also changing
As audiences continue to fragment, thereach of TV advertisements is becoming a
problem. Many are simply switching and showing their ads online;YouTube ads, for
example, are becoming more prevalent. However, I think this fails to take into
account the difference in consumers' mindsets.
Now I don't love watching ads on TV, but I'm reasonably comfortable with it.
Most of the time when I'm watching TV I'll put up with the ads because I figure
that the ads are the price I pay for watching the shows I want to watch.
However, when a friend sends me a link to a YouTube video, at the point at
which the pre-roll ad starts playing I don't know for sure this is a video I
*really* want to watch. As such the pre-roll ad maddens me. Many others also
feel the same. I sit, primed to skip the ad as those 5 seconds crawl by.
Right now, advertisers have failed to take into account these different modes
of human behaviour. Pre-roll ads on YouTube are not the same as ad on TV. We
react differently to them. I think in the future pre-roll ads either need to
change, or they won't survive.
It's not just TV; the way we consume *all* content is changing
Mitchell Kapour once said "Getting information off the internet is like taking
a drink from a fire hydrant."
To combat this issue we all uses filters (to some degree) to get our content.
We may filter by publisher, i.e. we'll only consume content from certain sites
(as opposed to trying to consume *all* the content). Or we'll have trusted
curators feed us content (this is what's often happening on Twitter; you'll read
the content the people you follow and trust recommend).
However, our technology also protects us from unwanted content:

The algorithm which determines what appears in your Facebook feed is based on
your previous interactions. As such you'll see more content from those friends
who's updates you like and comment on than those you never interact with.
Similarly, if you've previously "liked" a brand page on Facebook, but then
never interact with any of their content in your feed, you'll stop seeing that
content.
But it gets worse. Ogilvy predictsorganic Facebook reach is destined to hit
zero.
It's not just Facebook, since Gmail launched the tabbed inbox,
unsurprisingly,open rates are down.
Permission marketing may no longer be enough
All of this leads me to believe that permission marketing may no longer be
enough. All of those permission assets we spent years buildingemail lists,
active Facebook pages, etc.are likely to become less and less effective in terms
of reach.
Wait, what are you saying here?
Don't panic. I've not tricked you into reading yet another "[insert your
marketing tactic of choice] is dead" post. But things are changing, and they're
changing rapidly.Current trends
Here are some trends which I think are interesting:
Real-time
Remember this?


Power out? No problem.
pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

Oreo Cookie (@Oreo)
February 4, 2013

In thewrite-ups we sawhyperbole abound:
"The message was retweeted and 'liked' abajillion times" ~ Brad Tuttle,
Time
Really?
Close to 16,000 retweets = a bajillion?
The real success was around the amount of press attention this received. In
real terms the tweet itself was not that successful.
Nevertheless it's an interesting trend because it appear lightning doesn't just
strike twice - it strikes over and over again:


Hey
@Pharrell, can we have our hat back? #GRAMMYs

Arby's (@Arbys)
January 27, 2014

And as if we could forget:


If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever.
#oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap

Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow)
March 3, 2014
Online-first content
Many of the mostsuccessful pieces of content we've seen online actually existed
offline first. So we've seen many examples of ads created for TV do well online;
examples includeOld Spice, andEvian Rollerbabies. But I think we're seeing an
interesting trend toward content that was created specifically for an online
audience.
Dear reader, allow me to introduce you to the only pre-roll ad I've ever
elected not to skip.
Now clearly, I can't get it to run like a pre-roll, but you can do this for
yourself.

Click play, then position your mouse over the pause button.
Watch for five seconds.
Let me know if this piqued your interest sufficiently that you wanted to watch
the whole thing




I've also been enjoying what some brands are doing with Vine, check out:Lowes,
this gem fromTarget andGeneral Electric's 6 Second Science Fair.
We're also seeing a wave of films that don't feel like commercials:






Perhaps the most interesting trend:brands with values
By values, I mean brands that stand for something.
Moz hasTAGFEE, Innocent talks a lot aboutbeing sustainable, Patagonia talks
aboutenvironmentalism.Nike has this:

When you stand for something like that, you get tocreate thingslike this:

There's also evidence to suggest that standing for something can translate into
real business benefits.
Brands which are "meaningful" outperform the stock market by 120%.So what does
the future hold?
I wanted to round this up by making some predictions. Some are "safe," some are
less so. But where's the fun in telling you stuff you already knew?"Safe"
predictionsWe'll see more devices being adopted which will lead to more
technical challenges as we'll need to ensure everything we create worksacross
these devices.
We'll be under even more pressure to measure everything more accurately. We'll
need to track people, not sessions and figure out multi-channel attribution
properly.
We'll be even less reliant on organic search than we are today. Being overly
reliant on one channel is too risky.A"less-safe" PredictionThere will be a
deluge of content. But no content fatigue. Filters will become so sophisticated
that people just won't see it.Somewhat "out there" prediction:
Only brands that stand for something will survive.
In Europe and the US people wouldn't care if 92% of brands disappeared
(source).
In search we're perhaps more keenly aware of this than other marketers.We've
seen many affiliates fall thanks to changes in the algorithm, never to return.
Only the affiliates that were alsorecognisable brands survived.
Why?
Well people would think that Google was "broken" if major brands didn't show up
for relevant queries; that's why major brands make it back into the index fairly
quickly, even if they don't play by Google's rules.
But it goes deeper than that. Consumers are more savvy today than they once
were. If they actively dislike a brand, or what they stand for, they have the
tools at their disposal to easily go elsewhere. If your brand doesn't stand for
something, or people don't like what it stands for they are easily able to find
alternatives. Technology has empowered people in ways previously unimaginable.
But being 'big' isn't enough. If you want to ensure your brand retains
visibility in the future I think the only way will be to ensure people love your
brand enough to search for you by name.
Contrast these two searches:


The search for "BBC weather" doesn't yield a summary of the weather direct in
the SERP. Instead, BBC weather, quite rightly, ranks first.
Now of course there are no guarantees for the future, but I'd suggest that a
branded search is unlikely to yield a result where said brand is pushed below a
Google property.
Only time will tell.
When we think about the future of marketing its easy to slip into the trap of
thinking purely about technological challenges. However, the truth is that
marketing isnt changing
because of technology. Marketing is changing because consumers expectations are
evolving.
Consumers expect brands to deliver a seamless experience, regardless of their
location or the device they're using.
When they speak, they expect brands to respond.
They aren't interested in your self-serving messaging, oryour attempts to be
'down with the kids', but they'll happily be entertained.
Most of all you need them to love your brand and love your marketing. So much
so, that they'll actively seek it our for themselves and share it with their
friends.
I believe that as an industry we will evolve.
I've only been in the industry for 7 years,many of you have been doing this for
much longer than me and I *know* how adaptable you are.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the future, and your thoughts on my
predictions.
For those who are interested, you can view my full SMX deck below:




Humans, Technology & The Future of Marketing - SMX Munich 2014 from Hannah
Smith
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