Identifying Trends: Eight Ways The Industry May Change In Near Future

This article was originally published on Forbes.com

Changing markets, technologies, and consumer expectations can have major impacts on the way companies and their employees operate. This is particularly true when it comes to marketing and communications, which means professionals need to keep up with current challenges and potential solutions.

In order to help organizations better understand and adapt to upcoming trends, we asked members of Forbes Communications Council to identify and discuss the biggest trends they believe will impact the industry in the coming years. Here’s what they said:

1. Voice Assist And Search

With more and more people using voice-to-text through Siri, Alexa, Google Home, etc., it’s almost a requirement to be thinking about content not just as text on a page or on a screen. It’s now about how that content comes to life across these new delivery methods. Marketers can start to prepare by thinking about all the different devices they interact with on a regular basis. If you aren’t interacting with them, then you need to start talking to people who do and find out how you can take your static content and bring it to life in new mediums. – Liz Weir, LevLane Advertising

2. Customer Service Technologies

Once upon a time, social media was considered the extension of your customer service team, but in the evolving times of AI, it is no longer enough to have human-powered response processes. Companies are having to evolve their entire customer service approach to give the consumer the attention they demand, or they are going to fall by the wayside. – Carly Driscoll, TWIO Brand

3. Influencer Agencies

I am seeing the rise of influencer agencies. My advice is to be careful about how you spend money on influencers. There is usually very little measurable ROI. Don’t assume that increased awareness is enough of a benefit. – Joseph Rauch, Public Goods

4. A More Refined, Sophisticated Customer Experience

I see the trend of customer experience getting more refined and sophisticated. With the explosion of devices and 5G, interaction with both enterprise customers and consumers will open new frontiers, some of which we are already seeing with VR and AR. This will also further challenge brands and companies to rationalize and balance data, design, and technology, and find ways to continue to build meaningful business growth. – Paramita Bhattacharya, Nokia Technologies

5. New Forms Of Digital Transformation

Data continues to evolve and be critically important to marketers in fueling digital transformation and business growth. Data coupled with 5G will create new business models unachievable by today’s capabilities. Machine learning and artificial intelligence will create new and proactive engagement models. There are several things that we can do to prepare for this seismic shift. Assess and understand current data capabilities, build a plan to create a modern data infrastructure, leverage tools, and partners to fill in organizational gaps, and focus on data and predictive modeling as a core competency. – Jeffrey Fleischman, Altimetrik

6. Data Integrity

The rising trend in data integrity is a growing concern for some in the marketing fields. The consumer impression of data collection continues to be negative. However, marketers can ease public perception by ensuring that proper data collection, storing, and analysis methods are conducted ethically. – Alora Frederick, Ambii, Inc.

7. The Rise Of The Written Word

While the video is extremely crucial right now, I think we’ll see that decline and long-form web content or social content rise. You can prepare for this by starting now! Sit down and write your first LinkedIn article. – Alicia Haugen, Frontdesk, LLC

8. Purpose Beyond Profit

Organizations are finally realizing that making money is not enough. Companies need to innovate not only in the technologies they use but in their management models as well. Giving a purpose beyond profit is a must to generate sustainable growth. The successful companies of the future are the ones that aim for profitability as a tool, not only to satisfy shareholders’ interests but to build social equity, environmental improvement, and sustainability as well. – Pablo Turletti, ROI Marketing Institute USA LLC

Forbes Communications Council is an invitation-only, fee-based organization for senior-level communications and public relations executives. Find out if you qualify atforbescommcouncil.com/qualify. Questions about an article? Email [email protected].

Pablo Turletti, an internationally-recognized expert on marketing and sales efficiency and accountability, as well as a marketing keynote speaker, is the founder and CEO of ROI Marketing Institute (ROIMI), which has offices in Miami, Lucerne, and Madrid. ROI Marketing Institute helps companies around the world improve the efficiency of their marketing investments through precise measurement of the economic return on marketing activities. By directly connecting marketing projects and campaigns to a company’s bottom line, he helps turn them into true business investments. ROIMI provides a broad array of services, including auditing, competency-building, implementation support, consulting and research. Turletti is the author of the books ROI Marketing: The New Performance Standard and Marketing & Sales ROI: What Is It Good For? Learn more about the ROI Marketing Institute at roimarketinginstitute.com, and follow Pablo Turletti at twitter.com/pabloturletti or linkedin.com/in/pabloturletti/.