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4 Huge Trends Every Digital Marketer Needs to Know (Thinks Out Loud Episode 250!!!)

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4 Huge Trends Every Digital Marketer Needs to Know (Thinks Out Loud Episode 250!!!) – Headlines and Show Notes

In celebration of Thinks Out Loud's 250th(!!!) episode, host Tim Peter is counting down 4 huge trends that every digital marketer needs to know in the year ahead;. Thank you for listening. And thanks for supporting the show for almost 7 years.

Want to learn more? Here are the show notes for you:

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Contact information for the podcast: podcast@timpeter.com

Past Insights from Tim Peter Thinks

You might also want to check out these slides I had the pleasure of presenting recently about the key trends shaping marketing in the next year. Here are the slides for your reference:

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Recorded using a Neumann TLM 102 Cardoid Condenser microphone and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack USB recording interface into Logic Pro X for the Mac.

Running time: 16m 38s

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4 Huge Trends Every Digital Marketer Needs to Know (Thinks Out Loud Episode 250!!!) – Transcript

Well, hello again, everyone. Welcome back to Thinks Out Loud, your source for all the digital marketing expertise your business needs. My name is Tim Peter. Today is Wednesday, July 17th, 2019.

We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo landings next week, and it's a big anniversary for me, too. This is episode 250 of the big show, and I've had a tough time recording this today. This is like the third try, there's a big thunderstorm in the area. Though the studio is soundproofed, the microphone's been picking up the thunder, so I'm not just doing it for the drama of the 250th episode. But as soundproofed as I've made things, unfortunately if there's big thunder in the background, hopefully it'll just add to the excitement for this episode.

As ever, I very much appreciate you tuning in. I've been producing this show for almost seven years, and as just mentioned, 250 episodes now. And clearly, I wouldn't do it if you didn't bother to listen, if so many people didn't listen every single time, if they didn't email, if you didn't write me questions, and comments, and things like that. So I really, really appreciate you doing that. It means more than you can know. It makes this a lot of fun for me, and really, this isn't just my 250th episode, but hopefully it's yours, too, it's something that you feel part of.

So I want to talk about some things that really seem to have emerged. As I look at the data about the episodes that have most appealed to you over the last, really the last year. I'm not going to back and look at all 250 because I didn't think that made sense, because the trends have changed over time. But what has been clear is that there are a number of themes, there are a number of topics that continue to resonate, continue to become prominent, take center stage, that really seem to matter to you.

And the first I want to talk about is this idea of future trends. It is clear, people enjoy our episodes, the episodes we've put on about trends. And two that have been incredibly popular and I would recommend you check out again would be an interview I did with Jason Freed of Duetto on content marketing and future trends around it. Now that was episode 228, and Jason's a really sharp guy who was an editor, he was a journalist before he moved to Duetto, who is a software provider. And we had a really great discussion about why content matters and why it's such a key trend, and the trends around content that will help you as you go forward.

Now I've said many, many times on the show, and clearly, I'm going to say it again today. Content is king, customer experience is queen, and data is the crown jewels, and Jason just did a spectacular job calling out why content plays such a key role, not just now, but why it is likely to play such a key role as we go forward. And I think as you look at the other episodes that I'm going to call out, it's going to be pretty obvious content plays a bit role there. So certainly, check out episode 228.

The other episode that I thought was really interesting when we were looking at trends was episode 232, which was what won't change, the trends shaping digital next year. That was actually recorded in November of 2018 and spoke about this year. And it references a quote from Jeff Bezos, who frequently says, "People always ask about the things that will change," and he thinks it's so much more useful to ask about the things that won't change. Amazon has always been built on giving people great selection, giving people quick shipping, and giving people fast delivery. And everything they've done has been built around that for the 20-plus years they've existed as a company, and they've been pretty successful.

A future trend that has been really popular if we dive down into this a little bit, is by the way, the topic of intermediaries of various types, the gatekeepers, and folks like that. Obviously, I've been speaking about them the last couple weeks, I will link to those in the show notes, but there was an episode 221 that asked, "How do you compete with Amazon, and Expedia, and Google, and dot, dot, dot?" And that was a hugely popular episode. Lots of listens, lots of shares, clearly it's one that resonated.

And the answer is, don't just go at them head on, find what are the things that make you distinct, how do you differentiate your product, your service, your offering from what those guys do? Because you're not going to beat them going head-to-head, but you can absolutely find the right content, the right customer experience, the right data that allows you to compete with them successfully. And I give examples in that episode that I'd highly recommend you listen to.

There also was an episode from just a few weeks back, where we talked about why Google is the beast that scares your industry's 800 pound gorilla, right. I mean, the reality is when we talk about Amazon, when we talk about Google, when we talk in very specific verticals like Expedia in travel, or we talk about Yelp in local, or we talk about folks like that, clearly they have some distinct advantages, and Google has some distinct advantages over many of them. So episode 238 clearly resonated with folks and was one that most people came back to again, and again, and again, and I'd recommend if we're talking about big trends like intermediaries, that's one you're going to want to check out, too.

Of course, another huge trend that I've talked about many times here on the show is artificial intelligence. That probably shocks no one who's listened to the show more than once. But there were three episodes in particular that really, really seemed to resonate, and really seemed to capture your attention. One was episode 243 from earlier this year, which asked, "Is AI in sales and marketing real?" And it won't surprise you to know that the answer is, absolutely. And not only that, the episode does a really good, if I do say so, of giving examples of how AI is real in sales and marketing, and how you can make it real for your business.

Which leads to one of my favorite episodes and one of the most popular ones we've ever produced here, which was the one that said, "AI won't steal your job. Smart people who put AI to work will." That was episode 208. And in that episode, the thing you want to remember is that most AI today is being used to make the people who do the work that you do more successful. So you're not really, you shouldn't really be worried about AI taking your job away. You should really be worried about people who are using AI effectively competing with you, out-hustling you, and being able to deliver on the same value proposition that you try to deliver on, faster, cheaper, better.

Now we had one other great interview show that spoke about this, as well, which was I talked to Abhi Vyas from Verizon, all about mobile commerce, personalization, and go figure, how AI was going to make those more effective. That was episode 218, and was probably the third most popular episode we've ever done about AI and artificial intelligence. So definitely worth listening to for Abhi's point of view because this is a guy who's living in the trenches every single day, driving mobile commerce, using content, using customer experience, using data, and now using AI to make his business more effective. Well worth your time, I highly recommend it.

And then more broadly, that were a series of episodes over the last year or so that talked about how digital really shapes the world we live in. And the first one I wanted to talk about since I just mentioned a moment ago how people will use AI to be faster, is episode 215 that talks about marketing at the speed of digital. Now I've said many times, that that's the world we live in today. "The single biggest disruption we have seen is the fact that speed has become the new currency of business," that's actually a quote from Marc Benioff of salesforce.com. And it really represents the reality that customers expect things now, instant gratification simply isn't fast enough. So when we talk about these trends, one of the biggest is the fact that speed matters.

Now of course, there are a whole series of others, episode 216, the week right after that talked about disruption and five digital trends that show why you ain't seen nothing yet. Speed was one of them, mobile is one of them, AI is one of them, and clearly it kind of ties many of these together, but really helps you think about how to do this most effectively. That's a topic that I talked about a few months later when I talked about what digitally native companies do best, that was episode 245. And it really got to the crux of the fact that these trends we're talking about, really aren't future trends. They represent the world we live in today. And what digitally native companies tend to do best is live in the world as it is and the world as it will be, as opposed to the world as it was. So check out episode 245 for some great tips on how you can learn the same lessons and how you can apply them to your business.

And then the last two episodes that I want to call out, speak less to specific trends and more to your mindset. One was just from a few weeks ago that asked, "Is 2019 everything you've hoped for? And if not, what are you going to do to make it be everything you've hoped for?" And ironically, episode 223, the one that I want to finish with, was called hope is not a business strategy, is it? And really, it gets to the fact of, you always have to have hope. You're in control of this. It doesn't matter what comes down the pike, it doesn't matter what future trends emerge, it doesn't matter if AI starts to take over, it doesn't matter if intermediaries start to threaten you or start to challenge you. It doesn't matter that the competition continues to move faster and adapt.

It doesn't matter that some folks have great content, some folks have great customer experience, some folks have great data. And some folks have all of those. At least it doesn't as long as you continue to hope, and as long as you continue to learn, and as long as you continue to apply those learnings to create better content for your customers, to create better customer experience for your customers, and to gain the data and the insights necessary to continue to improve on that every single time. Because the biggest future trend you want to be aware of, is the fact that you can absolutely dominate. All of these things that your competition is doing, all of these things that the big folks are doing, are available to you, and you absolutely can do it, too.

Now looking at the clock on the wall, we are out of time for this week. I'd like to remind you, that you can find the show notes for today's episode, as well as an archive of all our past episodes, which obviously, many of these are drawn from, by going to timpeter.com/podcast. Again, that's timpeter.com/podcast. Just look for episode 250.

While you're there, please click on the subscribe link in any of the episodes you find there, to have Thinks Out Loud delivered to your favorite pod catcher every single episode. You can also subscribe in iTunes, or the Google Play Music Store, or Stitcher Radio, or whatever your favorite pod catcher happens to be. You can search for Tim Peter Thinks, Tim Peter Thinks Out Loud, or Thinks Out Loud, we should show up for any of those.

I'd also very much appreciate it if you could provide a positive rating or review while you're there. It's so helpful and I very much appreciate it. You can also find Thinks Out Loud on Facebook by going to facebook.com/timpeterassociates. You can find me on Twitter using the Twitter handle @tcpeter, or of course, you can email me. Just send your emails to podcast@timpeter.com. Again, that's podcast@timpeter.com.

As ever, I'd like to thank our sponsor. Thinks Out Loud is brought to you by SoloSegment. SoloSegment focuses on AI-driven content discovery and site search analytics to unlock revenue for your business. You can learn more about how to improve your content, increase your customer satisfaction, and make your search smarter by going to solosegment.com.

With that, I want to say thanks, especially to you. Thank you so much for the last 250 episodes and for the last seven years. I very much appreciate it. I hope you have a great week ahead. I hope you have a fantastic weekend. And I look forward to speaking with you here on Thinks Out Loud again, and again, and again, for another 250 episodes. Until next time, please be well, be safe, and as ever, take care.

Tim Peter is the founder and president of Tim Peter & Associates. You can learn more about our company's strategy and digital marketing consulting services here or about Tim here.

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