2010 is upon us! As we start yet another year with so much to look forward to in South Africa, both online and offline, we'd like to take a look at prospective trends to watch in 2010. Here are our thoughts on what we expect to see over the coming months.
Great customer service and results will be the key to success: with so many ways for businesses and individuals to express themselves online, customers are often bombarded and experience information overload. Among all this clutter, how do businesses differentiate themselves from their competitors? One way is through exceptional customer service and value-added extras. This leads to positive feedback from customers in the online space and the knock-on effect will be a virtual word-of-mouth exercise in positive PR.
Mobile operators will reduce tariffs: there's already been much speculation in the news and pressure from government for mobile phone operators to reduce exorbitantly high wireless communication costs in South Africa. In 2010, we hope to see a reduction in call and data costs. This should bring with it increased connectivity and larger numbers of users to the mobile web. This in turn should open up a number of opportunities for savvy businesses, particularly as emphasis shifts to mobile marketing.
More through-the-line advertising strategies for big brands: in 2009, we've already seen a number of traditional advertising agencies take the step into digital. As many are beginning to close the loop by tying their online campaigns to their offline messages, customers are able to engage more personally with their favourite brands online. We expect this trend to continue and develop even further in 2010. Examples from 2009 include the Real Men That Can't Sing (Klipdrift) campaign (DraftFCB), Steri Stumpie (King James) and Goodbye Citi (Ogilvy). All of these campaigns integrated websites and social media presences with radio ads, billboards and other offline advertising to great success.
Crowdsourcing and using the Internet as a platform for activism to increase awareness: the trend of adding “twibbons” to avatars and the popularity of sites like Avaaz.org are a virtual catharsis. But more than just showing support, people need to mobilise. We expect to see a continuation of these types of activities online - hopefully with more people actually taking action. We hope to see more action on the ground resulting from worthwhile and charitable online campaigns.
But there is also wisdom in crowds, and without a doubt, businesses and brands need to listen to their customers. Nowadays, customers have a voice and know what they want - and they express it online. We predict that crowdsourcing will become more prevalent among businesses looking for new ideas and virtually guaranteed sales.
Google Wave will either improve or disappear: there was a lot of hype about the beta rollout of Google Wave in 2009, but it seems to have fallen rather flat since then. Unless there are significant changes to the product, we think many users will be left wondering what it actually does. In many ways, a more useful and simplified browsing experience is Mozillas's Ubiquity, which allows you to search the web and perform common online actions in a far simpler and more meaningful way, using plain-language commands.
Social media marketing is going to become more mainstream: social media will continue to explode, and as the number of people using these sites increases, more businesses will try to leverage these platforms to build better customer relationships. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook will become key touch-points as these are real-time and more about what's happening now. MySpace will continue its demise into obscurity.
Mobile web marketing to take a bigger slice of the pie: with a reduction in mobile communication costs, we'd expect to see a greater inclusion of mobile initiatives in businesses' marketing budgets. These include elements such as mobi SEO for mobi sites, more time and effort being spent on mobile web design and usability (ie building specific mobile versions of websites) and of course, mobile PPC advertising.
Google seems to be leading the way here. Adwords has for some time offered mobile advertising through its Adsense network. Google also recently acquired AdMob, already a well-established player in the mobile advertising arena.
Faster Internet: broadband speeds are set to increase by 50% or more due to additional high-capacity bandwidth from improvements such as the Seacom cable link. For the end user, this will greatly improve their experience of the Internet and enable them easier access and more face-time with their favourite brands, social networking and media sharing sites.
An increase in niche social networking sites: there is so much clutter and information on social networking sites that it's becoming problematic for users and it's also complicating things for advertisers. We predict that in 2010 we'll see the establishment of more niche sites that narrow their focus onto a specific industry or interest. These sites will have lower membership numbers but will consist of tight-knit, likeminded communities.
Bing is going to become a bigger search player: In August 2009, Yahoo! and Microsoft reached an agreement to combine their respective search and search advertising businesses. Clearly this is an attempt to position themselves as a stronger competitor to Google. Early signs indicate that Bing's popularity is increasing and we think that in 2010 Bing will definitely take a larger part of the search market.
Jonathan Andrews is the eMarketing strategist at AlterSage (www.altersage.com), a Cape Town-based boutique online marketing agency that offers tailored solutions that achieve targeted exposure for clients. Contact him on tel +27 (0) 21 462 0036, email , follow him on Twitter at @jono1980, view his profile on LinkedIn and read his regular contributions to the AlterSage blog.
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