2016: The year of the user experience

More thought than ever before is going to go in to what will please the potential customer, rather than using gimmicks to lure people closer to making a sale.

The rise of the savvy (over digitized) consumer, who is probably blocking your adverts, means marketers who want to be seen and heard need to innovate with long term measures underpinned by these five things: Speed, technology, performance, authenticity and transparency.

Speed

The reality is that nearly half of the people surfing your website expect it to load in two seconds or less. And if it doesn't? There are plenty of other sites vying for consumer attention that will. You only have two seconds to make a first impression. And when it comes to buying, according to surveys done by Akamai and Gomez.com 79% of web shoppers who have any issues with buying on a site will not return. Tech.co have some even more sobering stats, including the fact that 52% of shoppers define quick pages as a key factor in 'maintaining their loyalty'. The faster your site is, the further ahead of your competitors you are.

Technology

The futurist prediction by Gartner is that by 2020, 25 billion devices will be creating content about... Everything. That's quite a staggering thought. Creation of data is key, but so is the strategic use of that data, as is data storage. Hand in hand with this is going to be an ongoing focus with regards to adaptive security architecture online. Gartner sites that the days of the 'block and defend' security model will be usurped by a more predictive approach using self-protecting apps.

Performance

By this we mean product performance. You can have the fastest loading website and the best tech, but a couple of negative comments about your brand online, that go unchecked, can sink a product. How do you ensure the best "performance" for your product? Provide quality goods or services that people really need and in 2016 be prepared to be agile enough to change direction to meet customer demands. Things in the marketing space are going to be changing even more rapidly in the future and you need to be able keep up.

Authenticity

From millennials to the following generations, people are going to question your product or service using their ethical considerations as a filter to direct their shopping experience. Being authentic about your product means showing who you are. It's no happy, warm and fuzzy coincidence that Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook page has regular posts with his dog and now his new baby. You are being marketed to, and it is an extremely effective strategy - isn't it?

Transparency

Goes hand in hand with being authentic. So you have a really great product or service, you need to be transparent about it. Share it. Transparency should be woven into your storytelling and part of your content marketing strategy. Being transparent is also about operating your business in a way that others can see what you are doing. If they like what you do and the way you do it, they will be genuine customers that are loyal to you because of an emotional engagement. Priceless.