Where Is The Future Of Internet Marketing Headed?

Staying Informed

Starting a career in the world of Internet marketing can be a little daunting at first. The dynamic, ever-changing atmosphere of the industry can sometimes have you feeling a bit like Sisyphus pushing his stone up a hill.

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In order to play the game, you’ve got to educate yourself, and stay informed. Week to week, I’m consistently amazed when reading about new, innovative technologies that continually revolutionize the industry.

It truly feels like the future is now with new tools that marry creativity & technology to help us better target audiences, create dynamic ads, and speak directly to our followers.

The World in 2030

It’s the marriage of technology and creativity that has always captivated me. Ask my friends, it’s not uncommon to see me nerding out on a tech blog or gobbling up documentaries on the topic.

Recently, I watched a great one featuring the brilliant Dr. Michio Kaku. It was entitled “The World in 2030,” and although it was uploaded in 2009, it was surely years beyond it’s time.

Dr. Kaku’s fascinating lecture touches on what everyday life will look like in the year 2030. He purports that Moore’s Law will produce super-cheap, highly effective, expendable technology that will penetrate every facet of life in the near future.

He further relays that by 2020, computer chips will become so cheap that they will be worth less than a penny. Think about that: Smart scrap paper that transfers your dot jots to the cloud, wallpaper that replaces your TV, nanomachines we swallow to map our bodies, preventing disease. It’s strange to think, but people may someday ask the question, “What’s a computer?” Or kids may remark, “You guys had to carry those things?”

Ridley Scott's view of marketing's future in 1982's Blade Runner

The lecture was an eye opening, albeit optimistic, view of the future that made me think about our industry. How will we adapt to these amazing technologies and reinvent the face of marketing?

In this blog, I try to imagine that future. It’s an open conversation we encourage you to take part in. Feel free to share your visions in the comments.

Here are just some of the thoughts that came through my mind:

Segmenting the Future

Advertising segmentation is nothing new. Today’s powerful tools target diverse audiences like never before. With the plethora of content across the Internet, advertisers are able to target you by your favourite show or clothing brand with tools like remarketing and social advertising.

I imagine the future of entertainment will produce such versatile products that will allow marketers to speak to uber specific niches based on their online interactions. Think about it already: the advent of Netflix, the YouTube star, podcasts, fan fiction, etc… The more and more specialized content becomes, the easier to target to those audiences.

In 2030, we will see a future where you choose your entertainment, and not the opposite. This will allow marketers to align themselves with targets that will not only directly relate to their brand, but could be major factors in their audiences life.

I know what you’re thinking: “Why will we even have ads in our entertainment? They’re interruptive and ultimately detract from the overall experience.”

I would venture to say that with the data available and the specific niches of entertainment, ads will become so catered towards their audiences that they will be welcomed and appreciated.

This doesn’t just go for new entertainment, either. How about kicking back, relaxing, and enjoying the classic Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. The only difference? You boot it up on the smart wall paper that covers your apartment, you replace Harrison Ford’s head with your own, and today’s movie is brought you by Nike, who seamlessly interchange their apparel into the film. It’s not even tacky, it’s entertaining.

Bad Photoshop of me on Indy's body. Yes, I know this is the third Harrison Ford movie referenced. 

A Different Internet

I got to thinking about the year 2030, and how we would boot up our Indy movie. What will web navigation look like? Will we be saddled with same type of browsers in the future? Will we even be aware we’re navigating the net?

I imagine the delivery of content in the future to be monumentally different than we know it now. For example, will we even be reading our internet in 2030? Will the demand for video and even further interactive entertainment supersede our affinity for the written word?

I can see biggest change in marketing happening here. Imagining a contemporary website in 2030 seems incomprehensible. Companies may not even have a central website; it might be more like a landscape to interact within and consume different types of content. I think the visual/interactive mediums will take a significantly higher precedent.

This doesn’t mean every company will have to hire Michael Bay to produce explosive content (see what I did there?). Camera and development technology will move along at analogous breakneck speeds. This will allow visual content to be highly topical, professional, and outright awesome!

For marketers this will mean a move away from the traditional website and more of a focus on creating visual/interactive spaces that audiences can move through freely.

Imagine the effect this will have on local business. Hiding from Yelp or Google+ reviews will not be an option. I venture to say the web and businesses like restaurants, hardware stores and the like will become so dependent and intertwined with their online profiles, they will be deemed one in the same. This is of course assuming D.I.Y. culture isn’t devoured by robots, and our food isn’t replaced by the futuristic food pill.

A third Harrison Ford flick for good measure...

Evergreen Content is Evergreen Content

This will be the age of convenience even more so than today. I believe marketers that supply audiences with things deemed useful will ultimately survive as the evergreen content strategy will become evergreen itself.

Marketers will need to adjust to the zeitgeist to produce everyday tools, for everyday life, and for every industry. Even more importantly, they will have to give it all away for free. What are those tools? It’s impossible to say as of right now, creativity and technology will just have to find a way.

Dr. Ian Malcolm: "Life will find a way..." Props to Steven Spielberg, too. He's thrown his hat into the reference game as well.

This is a truly fascinating topic that I would love to revisit, but I would really like to hear from you guys first. Please leave your visions of the future in the comments, and I will compile all of them for part II. Thanks for reading, and make sure to check out our YouTube channel for great videos about Internet marketing.