This post is part of a blog panel discussion I'm having with Meredith Eaton, John Sidline, and Frank Strong.  All four of us are blogging on the same topics on the same day.  My first post was on the biggest lesson of 2009, and my second post on how  I see marketers reacting to that challenge in 2010. This final post focuses on the outlook beyond 2010.

We love predictions. There's something about the transition from one year to another that makes us all want to try our hand at telling the future.

We're not very good at this business of predicting what's going to happen… And we're particularly bad about understanding how technology will change our world. When we predict the future, we don't imagine the next disruptive thing, we think about what we have today, just faster and better. We don't foresee the Internet; we imagine pneumatic tubes that go really, really fast.

Some great examples of smart people making spectacularly off-the-mark predictions on new technology:

Radio has no future.
-Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1897

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
-H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
-Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

640K ought to be enough for anybody.
-Bill Gates, 1981

Today, our culture and industry are clearly changing at record speed. As social technologies and new forms of communication become more popular, they are affecting how how interact and reach our audiences in fundamental ways. Chances are, however, our efforts to predict these long-term impacts are no better than those of the experts who came before us.

Now that I got that out of the way… here are my thoughts on the top trends I think will influence our business over the next five years.

1. Customers revolt over privacy

I see this trend gaining momentum and forcing us to change the way we work. Almost everything we've done here as brands and companies has been relatively superficial; offering opt-in vs. opt-out, for example, or changing the way we manage and secure customer data. Compared to the challenges ahead, however, we have simply been playing at the edges of what will be a much bigger set of challenges. The issue of privacy in the Google age goes far deeper and quickly leads to thorny issues.

Who owns information and data about a customer? Under what circumstances can it be shared? If inaccurate or damaging information is shared on a website or social network controlled by a company, what are its responsibilities? Can businesses make hiring decisions based on what they find online about an individual? Companies simply aren't prepared for the cultural, legal and technological challenges they will face in the years to come. I look for customers to demand increased accountability from the brands and services they interact with, and for that challenge to shape the way we reach and market to customers.

2. Marketers learn to manage complexity

Marketing has never been simple, but the core challenges underlying it – find, reach, and persuade customers – have always been straightforward. Certainly, as new technology and media offered us more possibilities for reaching and interacting with customers, our work has become more complex. I believe we are now, however, at a critical tipping point in terms of complexity.

Think about what is involved in having even the smallest product and business today. You still need everything you've always needed – a great product or service, a compelling message, a good understanding of your customers. But now you need a whole new set of things, all of which matter. A great website. A social presence that fits your customers. A content plan to keep them interested in your business. The ability to show up in search engines, so they can find you. Diligent tracking of your brand and reputation online, and the ability and resources to enter into conversations where necessary.

Can one person carry the load of marketing a small usiness on their own anymore? In some cases, even a small team might not be enough. We're entering the age of specialization, as even small companies turn to SEO experts, content people, web design folks, outreach marketing experts, and so on.

The challenge over the years ahead will be to manage that complexity without fragmenting resources and losing the unifying thread of customer experience.

3. Focusing on the 95%

Think of your customers as falling on a bell curve of technology and social media adoption. Companies today face overwhelming temptation to serve the top 5% of passionate, engaged, responsive customers. Over the years to come, marketers will have to learn to serve the other 95%.

The argument for serving the 5% goes something like this. After decades of wondering what our customers think of us, and paying market research experts to help us find out, we suddenly have access to the unfiltered, honest perspective of real customers. We need to do everything to understand them, and adapt our product, message and activities to suit them.

The problem: for most brands, particularly non-technology brands, that 5% is not representative of the great mass of your customers. The people who are most active on your blog, or Twitter feed, or who talk the most about you, may not behave at all like the ones who are driving your sales. But because you don't have the same access to those customers, you make it all about the 5%, and push through major changes to your brand and service to accommodate them.

Here' s a lesson we all need to learn, in this age of increased customer feedback: you can't please everyone. A while back, to prove this point, I did a few searches online that began with the words, "I hate ___." "I hate the Salvation Army" pulls up 87,000 hits; "I hate the Red Cross" 166,000. Even "I hate puppies" returns over 230,000 hits. 

Successful brands will have to figure out how to temper the feedback they get online and focus on the needs of their core customers. This will be a key challenge for our business in the years to come.

 

Check out the other panelists:

• Meredith L. Eaton, Blog Panel – Part 3: Public Relations Past 2010
• Frank Strong, Blog Panel Part III: Outlook for PR Beyond 2010
• John Sidline, link coming soon
  

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 5:29 pm and is filed under Branding and Messaging, Customer Insight and Analysis, Social Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.