Seven digital marketing trends for 2015

Michaela Kammerbauer, COO of clipkit GmbH (www.clipkit.com)"Moving images will remain the driver in digital marketing. Both content and advertising budgets will shift more and more from TV to online. Automation is playing an increasingly important role here. Online content syndication with fully automated context-sensitive playout brings video and website content together more quickly and easily, thus creating even more reach. On the advertiser side, the shift from direct sales to automated ad buying will also increase significantly. Studies predict that by 2018, 80 percent of online video and advertising campaigns will be managed via programmatic buying."

Moving image campaigns become more global thanks to multilingual videos

Bernd Korz, CEO of alugha GmbH (www.alugha.com)"Moving images are the future of communication. It's not for nothing that people have long said 'A picture is worth a thousand words and a video has at least 25 pictures in it - every second'. A message and an emotion can hardly be conveyed better than in a video. Today we are closer together than ever before, especially when it comes to videos, platforms like YouTube have made sure that we can be found, heard and watched worldwide with our message (of any kind). Since we speak many different languages in the world, multilingual videos are the perfect tool to reach very many people. Coming generations will rely more and more on this way of communication - especially thanks to an ever faster network."

Personalized customer service counts more and more in online shopping, too

Andreas Hertwig, Director Sales LivePerson Germany (www.liveperson.com/de)Real time customer support"71% of online customers today expect help from the seller within five minutes of their request, 31% even expect support immediately and these numbers will increase. An increasingly important role is therefore played by the keyword Live Engagement, real-time customer support."Multimedia offers in online stores"Website operators can add a personal touch to online shopping through interactive media, just like in a brick-and-mortar store. With the help of multimedia offerings such as real-time product demonstrations, videos, file sharing, live or video chat can convince a website visitor to buy even highly consultative products such as skin creams or products from the telecommunications sector online as well."

Innovative thinking and authentic brands determine successful corporate positioning

Florian Peter, CEO Mandalah Europe (www.mandalah.com)From incubator to company builder"In 2015, the importance of company building programs will continue to increase significantly. In contrast to the past two years, in which incubators initiated by companies functioned as cooperation platforms between themselves and startups, companies will focus much more on working on innovation topics together with entrepreneurs, their own internal experts and intrapreneurs, and on building up their own startups from within and bringing them to market maturity. The resulting added value is clear: On the one hand, the entire innovation potential remains within the company, but the organizational culture also becomes noticeably more flexible and leaner."Purpose"Generation Y, which is becoming increasingly powerful in terms of purchasing power, will also increasingly strengthen its decisive influence on brand worlds in 2015 and push the rethinking of entrepreneurs more strongly to invest in the development of products and services that sustainably promote the overall well-being of people and the environment. Brands that authentically link their brand core to this purpose over the long term will clearly stand out in positioning and lead the competition."

Automation for web-to-print and personalized new customer communication

Florian Werner, Managing Director Remintrex (www.remintrex.de)"Automated multi-channel marketing, which is already common practice in the USA, will also achieve a breakthrough in Germany in 2015. The offline sector in particular will strike back here. With increasing demand, click prices on ad networks like Google are no longer bargains. Instead of investing 50 cents and more for a click on Google, other, personalized forms of customer communication are coming into focus. The evolution towards a targeted and personalized approach, which has fortunately already taken place in the area of regular customers, will also be repeated in new customer communication. In the battle for new customers, it is no longer enough to simply serve as many marketing channels as possible with a one-fits-all advertising message. The focus of the marketing approach will increasingly be on the individual behavior of the user in the respective phases of the purchase decision process. This applies to both online and offline channels - ideally even combined."

Aggregation of online customer opinions

Remo Fyda, CEO of ProvenExpert (www.provenexpert.com)"What has long been standard practice in e-commerce and for travel providers will increasingly become mandatory for service providers in 2015: online customer feedback and ratings. Whether Facebook, Google+, Foursquare or other platforms - customers everywhere can rate and publicly express their opinions, asked or unasked. If you want to remain competitive, you have to keep an eye on your online reputation. The topic of aggregation is of particular importance here. Without having to check umpteen rating portals, consumers want to see conveniently at a glance how satisfied other customers are with a service provider or company. For them, this means actively collecting customer feedback, monitoring it, and aggregating it in one place to meet this new consumer behavior."

Storytelling as a link between owned, earned and paid media

Miriam Rupp, CEO Mashup Communications GmbH (www.mashup-communications.de)"The boundaries between marketing campaigns, public relations, social media and content marketing will disappear even more. Emotional corporate stories are at the center. Storytelling as a link ensures that each channel is a different page of the same book, in which the user likes to turn the pages. The clearest current example, and even more important in 2015: social media influencer relations. Even if they are sponsored posts, bloggers and YouTubers can only be won over for the campaign with a convincing hook. The posts only have an impact if they are told authentically."