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WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson

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The competitive matrix is important in a business plan for several reasons. First, it's a great input for strategy and looking ahead. Second, it can develop and explain positioning. Third, it is one of the most obvious, strategic visuals that business plan readers expect. It is a mainstay in pitch presentations, business plans, product development, strategy, and in-marketing messaging too (think advertising). When it isn't there, readers miss it.

Here's a simple, practical example:

As you can see in the illustration above, the standard competitive matrix shows how different competitors stack up according to significant factors. It is a comparison of your product or service in the light of those factors of competition. It illustrates how this product or business offering stacks up, in terms of features and benefits, against its competition. Even if you don't recognize a competitor matrix from business plans or business pitches-where it has become even more standard than the organization chart-you'll probably remember seeing a lot of these in traditional advertising.

Standard uses of the competitive matrix

I mentioned above that the competitive matrix is now a mainstay in business plans and business pitches. I review about a hundred of these every year, most of the time along with other investors in a group, and it does seem like we expect this visual and miss it if it's not there.

The use of these things, in fact, has made me a bit cynical. I see competitive matrices all the time in plans and pitches, and yet I've never seen a single one that didn't show that this company does more of what the market wants than all others. So, maybe that tells you something about credibility and how to increase it. After all, it's unlikely that you will do everything your competitor does.

Still, the competitive matrices I see are all in the context of seeking investment, so maybe being "the best" the nature of the game. In this context, the goal is establishing differentiators, and validating a market need, in the eyes of potential investors. The underlying point is supposed to be that "We fill a gap. We do it better"-not necessarily that "We do it all."

As public messaging (such as in ads), this kind of information is falling out of favor for good reasons. One obvious reason is that you are using your voice to talk about your competition to people who are at the moment with you and you alone. Think of that case on a consumer good package, for example. If the potential buyer has your box in hand, do you want that person to see a list of your competitors? Another reason that this is less common is there are some legal risks to publishing information about a competitor. And a third reason is that many people question the ethics or values of a company that openly and publicly criticizes its competitors. It doesn't always boost credibility.

Don't, please, discount the competitive matrix as an internal tool to help with strategy development and specifics of designing products. For this use, you don't worry about showing how what you have is better; you use it to look for holes in the market, and needs that aren't covered, so you can lead product development toward solutions that are better business opportunities.

Often a competitive matrix is an opportunity for creative marketing, which we might also call spin, or rearranging information so it suits your business purpose. Most of the matrices I see in plans and pitches configure the categories involved to favor their underlying point. What features are the right features to track? If you had the time and inclination to do it, you could find markets in which multiple competitors each have different configurations of categories to track in their competitive matrices. It happens all the time, and, if you set your categories well enough, you can create a visual that validates your positioning without stretching or distorting the truth. It's all in the definitions.

Where to find the competitive matrix information

With competitive information, these days it's not a matter of finding a needle in a haystack; it's figuring out which needles to choose from a mountain of needles. You can find an amazing wealth of information about your competitors on the web, and in mobile apps. The hard part, of course, is sorting through it and knowing what to emphasize.

I do suggest here that you stay flexible and pragmatic. Look for available information that will stand for what you want to show. For example, I might use stars in reviews, from amazon.com or Yelp, as a surrogate for quality. That would be way more practical than conducting primary research. And it's credible to the audience.

There was once a problem finding information on smaller, privately-owned competitors, compared to the wealth of financial information available for companies traded on one of the major stock markets. Nowadays, however, websites, social media, and reviews are widely available on lots of local businesses. Not having some way to rank and evaluate competitors is usually for lack of trying, not for lack of information. Here too, beware of having too much. Spare your readers proof of how good you are at gathering information, and give them only the information they need and will use.

Don't assume you can get financial information on companies that are privately held. Use a surrogate if you have to, like numbers of employees, rooms, tables, vehicles, or (here too) stars in reviews. If possible, you may want to take on the task of playing the role of potential customer and gain information from that perspective.

Industry associations, industry publications, media coverage, information from the financial community, and their own marketing materials and websites may be good resources to identify these factors and "rate" the performance and position of each competitor.

Place it in your plan where it achieves your business goal

Position your competitive matrix in your business plan and pitch decks wherever you think it will help you achieve your business goal.

If your plan is to serve as background information for raising angel investment, then you'll need a pitch deck and your competitive matrix will be one slide in the deck, in the part of the presentation that you're using to explain and develop your product, or product positioning, or marketing. Put it close to your relevant information, and be flexible, because the flow of a pitch depends on the specifics.

Within the plan itself, it could go into either the product section or the marketing section, wherever you feel it bits best. There is always potential overlap with the concept of competition, between discussion of product, and discussion of marketing strategy.

If you're doing a lean business plan, use the competitive matrix to help with strategy development. It fits into strategy or tactics; and concrete specific actions to react to your competitive positioning could easily be milestones.

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How to Use the Competitive Matrix to Explain Your Position in the Market - Bplans Blog

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Take the time to create a competitive matrix and you'll reap the rewards. It will help you figure out strategy, your positioning in the market, and it's a great, visual mainstay for pitch presenations-investors love it! Here's how to use it.

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How to Approach Your Innovation Presentation

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An Easy Overview Of "Feasibility Study" Created under Creative Commons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feasibility_study

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FEASIBILITY STUDY TEMPLATE

1. Executive Summary

The executive summary provides an overview of the content contained in the feasibility study document. Many people write this section after the rest of the document is completed. This section is important in that it provides a higher level summary of the detail contained within the rest of the document. Remember to remove the green instructional portion of the Feasibility Study Template before making your document final.

Alan's Best Chocolates (ABC) is a leader in the sales of chocolates and confections throughout the United States. ABC's products are sold from 50 stores throughout the country and maintain a reputation for superior taste and quality. While ABC's sales have grown over the past 10 years, the rate of growth has slowed significantly. One key factor for this slowing growth rate is the shift in the marketplace to purchasing chocolates and confections online. While ABC maintains a web site, it is not capable of hosting an e-commerce platform for online sales. ABC's sales occur only in its brick and mortar facilities and the company is losing potential customers to competitors who provide online sales. The chocolate and confections marketplace is healthy and shows a continued growth trajectory over the next five to ten years. ABC is in a position to capitalize on this online marketplace by leveraging existing technologies, industry best practices, and an aggressive marketing and sales campaign to ramp up the company's growth projections for the foreseeable future.

2. Description of Products and Services

This section of the feasibility study provides a high level description of the products and/or services which are being considered as past of the feasibility study. The purpose of this section is to provide detailed descriptions of exactly what the organization is considering so this information can be applied to the following sections of the document. It is important that this description captures the most important aspects of the products and/or services that the organization is considering as well as how it may benefit customers and the organization.

ABC is considering a move to create and provide an online platform from which to sell its existing product line. Until now ABC has only sold its products from its chain of brick and mortar facilities and has been limited to sales within the geographical regions where its stores reside. By doing so, ABC has not been able to capitalize on the growing trend of online sales within the chocolate and confections marketplace. By offering its products through an online platform, ABC can market its products to an entirely new market, increase revenue and growth projections, and allow customers to purchase our products from the convenience of their own homes.

There are no proposed changes to ABC's current product offerings as a result of this study. Online sales will include only current products and any changes to this product line must be considered outside of the purpose of this document.

3. Technology Considerations

This section of the feasibility study should explain any considerations the organization must make with regards to technology. Many new initiatives rely on technology to manage or monitor various business functions. New technology may be developed internally or contracted through a service provider and always result in costs which must be weighed in determining the path forward.

Upgraded technological capability will be required for ABC to move toward offering an online marketplace from which customers may purchase our products. Customers demand a simple and easy way by which to conduct online transactions and it is imperative that all transactions are conducted in a secure manner. While ABC maintains a web site with product lists and descriptions, it does not currently allow for purchasing to be done online. This functionality must be integrated with our current web site to allow for secure purchases to be made. Additionally, new online marketing functionality must be considered in order to target existing and potential customers through methods such as e-mailing lists, promotional advertisements, and loyalty discounts.

While ABC maintains a small information technology (IT) group, the expertise does not currently exist internally to design, build, and implement the sort of extensive online platform required for this effort. Therefore, the recommendation is to contract this work out to an internet marketplace provider who can work with ABC to meet its needs within the determined timeframe and budget. It should be noted that while ABC does not have this expertise internally, the technology exists and is in use throughout the marketplace which lowers the risk of this concept considerably.

ABC currently maintains a high speed internet connection, web server, and the latest software. With the addition of an e-commerce portal it is expected that there will be an overall cost increase of 5-10% for web server operations and maintenance costs.

4. Product/Service Marketplace

This part of the feasibility study describes the existing marketplace for the products and/or services the organization is considering. It may describe who the target market consists of for these products or services, who the competitors are, how products will be distributed, and why customers might choose to buy our products/services. Most marketplaces are dynamic environments in which things change constantly. To enter a new marketplace blindly will usually result in an organization not fully understanding its role and not maximizing its resulting benefits.

The online marketplace for chocolates and confections has been thriving for many years. In FY20xx online chocolate sales accounted for approximately $20 million or 20% of total chocolate sales worldwide. While chocolates and confections are available in almost every store, our primary marketplace consists of specialty chocolates and confections. All of ABC's current major competitors already have an established online presence of at least 3-5 years. The top 3 competitors are currently: Smith's Chocolates, Worldwide Candy, and Chocolate International. A large majority of ABC's customer base are returning customers and referrals from existing customers. By providing a more convenient means of purchasing our products online it is expected that we will retain these customers while conducting an online marketing campaign for new customers as well.

ABC will distribute online purchases via direct shipping from the nearest store location. This will allow ABC to provide timely shipping and eliminate the need for a central warehouse or facility from which to store and ship its products. Such a facility would require a significant capital investment as well as increased operation and maintenance costs. However, based on anticipated growth projections, ABC must ensure that all store locations maintain adequate inventories on hand to satisfy customer demand.

5. Marketing Strategy

Here the feasibility study provides a high level description of how the organization will market its product or service. Some topics which should be included are: how does an organization differentiate itself from its competitors; types of marketing the organization will utilize; and who the organization will target. Marketing efforts must be focused on the right target groups in order to yield the greatest return on investment.

In order to be successful, ABC must differentiate itself from competitors in order to appeal to customers in the online marketplace. To do this, ABC will utilize its practice of personalizing its product packaging which it currently offers in-store customers. Current competitors do not currently provide any personalization of packaging. Customers will have the ability to personalize messages on or inside of product packaging, request specific color-based themes, or tailor packaging for special occasions or events.

ABC will implement a customer e mailing list in order to send product promotions, sales advertisements, and other special offerings to customers who register. Additionally, ABC will offer referral incentives to customers who refer our products to friends and family in order to provide additional incentives. ABC will also maintain a customer database in order to determine its target customer groups and geographical regions. ABC will research marketing intelligence providers to determine the benefits and costs of purchasing customer information for bulk email campaigns as well. Another important consideration of ABC's online marketing strategy is cost. Electronic marketing communication costs are very small in comparison to direct mail marketing which ABC currently utilizes. However, we expect the additional revenue from online sales to greatly outweigh these additional electronic marketing costs.

It is important to note that ABC's current marketing and sales staff will require training in online marketing and sales practices. This training will need to be contracted to a training provider as part of our startup costs and schedule.

6. Organization and Staffing

With many new products or services there may be a need for additional staffing or for an organization to restructure in order to accommodate the change. These are important considerations as they may result in increased costs or require an organization to change its practices and processes.

The ABC online sales campaign is not anticipated to significantly affect the organizational structure of the company. There are, however, several staffing additions required to successfully implement the online sales campaign. All of these positions will work within existing departments and report to department managers.

Staffing Position #1: Online Sales Manager - this full time position will lead sales staff in identifying sales opportunities and converting these opportunities to actual sales. This person will report to ABC's Director of Sales and will work in ABC headquarters.

Staffing Position #2: Online Marketing Manager - this full time position will lead marketing staff in identifying target customer groups/markets and conducting online advertising/marketing efforts to maximize traffic to ABCs online marketplace. This person will report to ABC's Director of Marketing and will work in ABC headquarters.

7. Schedule

This section of the feasibility study is intended to provide a high level framework for implementation of the product or service being considered. This section is not intended to include a detailed schedule as this would be developed during project planning should this initiative be approved. This section may include some targeted milestones and timeframes for completion as a guideline only.

The ABC online sales campaign is expected to take six months from project approval to launch of the e-commerce platform. Many of the foundations for this platform, such as high-speed internet and web server capability, are already available. The following is a high level schedule of some significant milestones for this initiative:

Jan 1, 20xx: Initiate Project
February 1, 20xx: Project kickoff meeting
March 1, 20xx: Complete online sales site design
April 1, 20xx: Complete testing of online sales site
June 1, 20xx: Complete beta testing trials of online sales site
July 2, 20xx: Go live with site launch

Upon approval of this project a detailed schedule will be created by the assigned project team to include all tasks and deliverables.

8. Financial Projections

The financial projections for the feasibility study provides a description of the financial projections the new initiative is expected to yield versus additional costs. Financial projections are one key aspect of new project selection criteria. There are many ways to present these projections. Net present value (NPV), cost-benefit calculations, and balance sheets are just some examples of how financial projections may be illustrated. This section should also provide the assumptions on which the illustrated financial projections are based.

The financial projections for the addition of an online sales platform for ABC are highlighted in the table below. These figures account for projected online sales, additional staffing requirements, shipping, material, and insurance costs, contract support for IT and training needs, and web server and hosting costs.

The assumptions for these projections are as follows:

In store sales projections remain unchanged

All milestones are performed in accordance with the schedule

All transactions are closed yearly with no carry-over to subsequent years

9. Findings and Recommendations

This section of the feasibility study template provides an area where to summarize the findings of the feasibility study and explain why this course of action is or is not recommended. This section may include a description of pros and cons for the initiative being considered. This section should be brief since most of the detail is included elsewhere in the document. Additionally, it should capture the likelihood of success for the business idea being studied.

Based on the information presented in this feasibility study, it is recommended that ABC approves the online sales initiative and begins project initiation. The findings of this feasibility study show that this initiative will be highly beneficial to the organization and has a high probability of success. Key findings are as follows:

Technology:

Will utilize existing technology which lowers project risk

E commerce infrastructure will be contracted out to vendor which allows ABC to share risk

Once in place this technology is simple to operate and maintain for a relatively low cost

Marketing:

This initiative will allow ABC to reach large number of target groups electronically at a low cost

ABC can expand customer base beyond geographic areas where stores are currently located

The marketplace for online chocolate and confection sales is in a steady state of growth

ABC is able to differentiate itself from its competitors and will utilize incentive programs to target new consumers

Organizational:

Minimal increases to staffing are required with no changes to organizational structure

No new facilities or capital investments are required

Financial:

Break even point occurs early in the second year of operation

Five year projections show online sales accounting for 25% of total sales

ABC will be in position to capture greater market share by maintaining both an in-store and online presence

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The executive summary provides an overview of the content contained in the feasibility study document. Many people write this section after the rest of the document is completed. This section is important in that it provides a higher level summary of the detail contained within the rest of the document.

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Samsung didn't invent the mobile phone - that honour goes to Motorola - but it took a transformative new technology and ran with it. "Innovation isn't just about doing something new. It can also be about doing something better," says Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at LBS and Academic Director, Deloitte Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Even when Samsung is in the news for the wrong reasons - the company has recalled the Galaxy Note 7 smartphones on safety grounds after some of the devices caught fire - its fortunes are expected to recover. "Samsung has drawn a line under this problem now. I expect the company to bounce back, just as Toyota did following its faulty accelerator issues five years ago."

This is a company after all that's been growing and innovating since 1938, when it started out as a food exporter shipping dried fish and flour from Korea to China. In the 1950s it got into life insurance and textiles. Samsung Electronics was founded in 1969. In the early 1990s Samsung started producing processors and hard drives for PCs, exporting them to companies including today's smartphone rivals Apple.

In 1983, when Motorola launched the Motorola 8000, Samsung was still proudly making black-and-white TVs. Today, the Motorola brand name has all but vanished: only the "Moto" product name is left as a small reminder of what was once a pioneering company at the forefront of innovation.

Samsung, on the other hand, has become a dominant force in consumer electronics. It introduced its first Android phone, the Galaxy S, in 2010; the Galaxy S8 looks likely to launch early next year. How has it achieved its success?

Read the markets

"Samsung's strategy has been essentially to read the markets," says Professor Birkinshaw. "Samsung figures out where the world is heading in terms of mass-market consumer electronics products, sees what is selling well and what is growing and moves into that space with a better product than the original offering."

Every time Apple launches a new product, Samsung brings out its own version a year or so later: think of the touchscreen phone, the tablet, the smart watch. And it isn't just Apple that has been Samsung's inspiration: twenty years ago, Sony was first to market, Samsung was close on its heels.

Samsung is the classic fast follower: they're attuned to what competitors are doing and what other people are bringing to market first. They watch like a hawk as others gain traction and then very rapidly come up with their own version. This emphasis on speed usually pays off, but it can also backfire - as the problems with the Galaxy Note 7 highlight.

Use innovation methodologies

Don't think that this fast-follower approach to innovation is easy: it still requires enormous creativity and skill. Samsung invests heavily in training its engineers to systematically innovate. It has had a close working relationship with the Russian Academy of Science since the 1990s, tapping into the country's scientific expertise at relatively low cost.

One result of this is that it uses a Russian problem-solving methodology for innovation and new patents called TRIZ. In 2004 one project alone, a DVD pick-up innovation, saved Samsung more than US$100 million. "Innovation is critical to a company's survival," Samsung states.

Remember too that Samsung is a company with a vast amount of technological expertise. They make about 50% of the world's microprocessors in some sections of the market. They're one of Apple's biggest suppliers, providing memory chips, touchscreen glass and other components. The reason they're able to move so fast is because they already have so many other general-purpose technologies that underlie consumer electronics. So moving quickly is about bundling together new and existing technologies.

Push the boundaries

"Samsung is playing a very savvy game, though they are pushing the boundaries of what's legal," says Professor Birkinshaw. Indeed, Apple has had a long running legal dispute with Samsung over patent infringement, and in December 215 Samsung paid out a US$548 million fine to resolve the matter.

"The creative efforts of others may provide the inspiration but Samsung always puts a unique twist on its products. They've developed a number of different products that are selling incredibly well. Yes, Samsung is copying but it's also enhancing. And it builds on all of its other strengths in order to create a high-quality, low-cost product that can undercut Apple."

Samsung spends lavishly on its outrageously bold advertising. In 2013 Apple funnelled 0.6% of its revenue into advertising. Samsung spent 5.4% of its revenue, a staggering US$14 billion, on marketing and promotion. To put this into perspective, Coca Cola spent US$3 billion on similar activities in the same year. Samsung sponsored the Olympics and The X Factor. And it's not afraid to directly take on its competitors, with ads that send up the hipster geek stereotype of the typical Apple customer.

Avoid complacency

Samsung isn't the only fast follower in the consumer electronics industry. Professor Birkinshaw points to the newer companies that are now moving into Samsung's territory on mobile, notably the Chinese players such as Xiaomi, Huawei and ZTE that similarly take existing products made by other companies and improve and refine them to produce something they can call their own. "They're playing Samsung's game but Samsung invented it."

This new competition seems to be prompting a change in strategy at Samsung. CEO Kwon Oh-hyun told his staff recently that Samsung was now aiming to become leaner and meaner: "We should adapt ourselves to the new environment instead of sticking to our success in the past. I believe now is the time for us to turn ourselves into a first mover from a fast follower."

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Lessons from the world's best-known fast-follower: Samsung | London Business School

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Samsung didn't invent the mobile phone - that honour goes to Motorola - but it took a transformative new technology and ran with it. "Innovation isn't just about doing something new. It can also be about doing something better," says Julian Birkinshaw, Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at LBS and Academic Director, Deloitte Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

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http://academlib.com/3852/management/process_entrepreneurship#811 A number of scholars have conceptualized, analyzed, and formalized the process of entrepreneurship. The process of entrepreneurship, at its most basic, is a three-stage process comprising opportunity discovery, venture creation, and exploitation.13 Accordingly, this three-phase process comprises the following distinct stages: ...

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Dr. Stephen Hicks outlines the process of entrepreneurship, from creativing a new product or service to eventual success, emphasizing the skills and traits that are key to entrepreneurial success.

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Top 20 Trends in 2017 Trend Report - Futurist Keynote Speaker Jeremy Gutsche

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Uploaded by Katie Iverson on 2013-08-02.

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Megatrends: 5 global shifts changing the way we live and do business

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KPMG's animated infographic previews the nine global megatrends Future State 2030 identifies as most salient to the future of governments.

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Beyond Free Principles of Marketing Video

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Introduction - Market leadership in the 3G market - Hutchison 3G | Hutchison 3G case studies and information | Business Case Studies

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3G is a contemporary development, with phones first being developed on a major scale in Japan in 2001. Today, more than half of Japanese mobile phone users use 3G. It spread to Europe in 2003 and its use is growing rapidly here and worldwide. The market leader in 3G in this country is 3.

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Trends for the Future Activity

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Crystal balls. Tarot cards. Extra Sensory Perception. Looking at tea leaves. Using your sixth sense. Fortune cookies. Reading Nostradamus. Precognitive dreaming. Palmistry. There are many ways it is said you can tell the future, and precisely none of them were used to research this list of the biggest digital marketing trends for 2017.

Instead, I have taken a year's worth of reading about marketing every day, looked at the developments that seem to be gaining traction, and extrapolated some predictions for 2017.

Sorry if that's not scientific enough for you. I actually Googled 'methods for predicting the future' in preparation for this article (see, I do proper research too) and one of the methods listed was 'time travel' so if it helps, imagine me in a Delorean going at 88mph.

Immersive marketing

The success of content marketing has been a mixed bag. It has given consumers entertaining, informative content. It has also seen a lot of rushed content published in the race to expand content volumes.

This increased competition has seen market leaders and innovators look for new ways to engage their audience, and developments in various technologies are helping to drive this phenomenon.

Both Facebook and YouTube have introduced 360-degree video, and some brands have already begun experimenting with the format for an interesting and innovative experience. Take a look at this 360-degree promo for Star Wars: Rogue One, or this effort from GoPro.

Following on from the success of Pokemon Go, Pepsi developed an augmented reality ad.

The Art Institute of Chicago and Airbnb released a uniquely immersive experience to promote a Van Gogh exhibition. They created a room that copied one of Van Gogh's most famous paintings and listed the room on Airbnb.

There have been some innovative, interactive campaigns on Snapchat this year, with sponsored filters being an obvious route.

Marketing campaigns that push the boundaries like this cannot be universal, but it will be interesting to see how marketers continue to experiment in 2017. Live video can play a part in creating an immersive video too...

More live video

Live video has suddenly become the internet's favorite shiny new toy. When Meerkat entered the market it was an entertaining novelty. Now, Twitter (via Periscope), Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram have all released live video offerings as well.

Many of these networks are promoting their live video quite heavily, and it's something that will stand out in the saturated world of content, so I can see plenty of reasons why brands would want to get involved.

An early example was BuzzFeed's live stream of two employees trying to explode a watermelon using rubber bands. The video has had a total of 11 million views.

I also expect the two worlds of live video and influencers to collide in 2017, with product placement and sponsorships becoming a regular feature of influencer videos. Finally, The Truman Show comes to life.

Using all the big data

Big data has been around for a few years now, but getting the most out of all this data is still a challenge to many.

Market research firm Ovum estimates the big data market will increase from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $9.4 billion by 2020. As businesses mature and put new structures and roles in place, big data will begin to become increasingly useful and utilized.

Big data is becoming increasingly widely used. It is said to have played a large part in the outcome of the US election. Cambridge Analytica harnessed big data for a variety of uses. Their analysis helped the Trump team know where to focus fundraising efforts, target 'persuadables', and increase spend.

The data was even used to deliver 4,000 individual digital ads. This messaging was continually tested and refined using polling and the firm's data.

Get the guide

Increased personalization

Big data can have a variety of uses, one of them being personalized customer experience and marketing. The personalization of Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify show how data can be used to improve the customer experience. This level of one-to-one marketing will slowly become more prevalent as brands weigh opportunity and cost and find ways of introducing it into their messaging.

In marketing, data has been used for the lighthearted but enjoyable campaigns such as Spotify's "Thanks 2016, It's been weird", to Chelsea football club's search for a new sponsor, which was a highly personalized campaign (see video below).

Native advertising

While native advertising may be an old method, market forces should increase its prominence in 2017. The diminishing penetration of many ads - through ad blockers, reduced social media organic reach, and the decline of banner ads - will see an increase of native advertising.

The Guardian newspaper has recently updated its native advertising platform to help brands find a home for their content. As Adam Foley, commercial strategy director, says "we have answered a genuine industry problem faced by advertisers and agencies who create their own branded content and struggle with a suitable home."

Digital marketing trends that are on the list every year but still deserve to be there:

Mobile first

Probably on every digital marketing trends list since cell phones first had internet capabilities, the relentless increase of users accessing the web through mobile means its importance continues.

In fact, this year there were two important markers for mobile: Google announcing a mobile-first web index, and the fact that mobile traffic has overtaken desktop for internet usage.

AR & VR

The progress is probably slower than people would like, as this is another trend that's been on many a list. I've even talked about it in this post, and I do believe its use will increase, but it is unlikely to develop beyond a niche market in 2017.

More video

It feels like my entire Facebook feed is already taken up by video, but I'm sure there is room for more. Facebook has driven profits by embracing video, and is likely to continue. Twitter are banking on broadcasting NFL games to boost their revenue. It seems we can't get enough of video, so expect the powers that be to serve up even more.

Things that everyone will predict to trend but probably won't quite move as fast as they are expecting:

The Internet of Things

There are billions of connected devices, from thermostats to smart cars. And yet, the biggest Internet of Things news this year was the massive DDoS attack in October caused by weaponizing low-security connected devices.

The Internet of Things has some exciting early uses. There are industries that are seeing a lot of value from IoT, but for most people it's a slow crawl. Developments will continue to creep into our lives, but it feels like people are expecting too much too soon.

Wearables

The tech will improve, the prices will go down, and more people will embrace wearables. I just can't see it becoming a mainstream concern by the time the year is out. Having said that, usage will slowly continue to rise.

Chatbots

Chatbots will be a trend in 2017, but don't expect to be talking to Scarlett Johansson in Her anytime soon.

And one that I hope will happen:

After Google announced that popups will soon be penalized in search, I'm hoping they go one better and stop autoplay videos with audio. Autoplay videos are intrusive, annoying things that make me want to instantly close the browser, shut my laptop, throw it in an open, active volcano, and never return to the internet again.

Those are our predictions for the biggest digital marketing trends for 2017. If none of them come to fruition I'll break out the Tarot cards next year.

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11 Digital Marketing Trends for 2017 - Brandwatch

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Crystal balls. Tarot cards. Extra Sensory Perception. Looking at tea leaves. Using your sixth sense. Fortune cookies. Reading Nostradamus. Precognitive dreaming. Palmistry. There are many ways it is said you can tell the future, and precisely none of them were used to research this list of the biggest digital marketing trends for 2017.

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What amount online business have you been actually passing up on by not out being ranked or dominating all of your competitors in the true Search Engine Results Listings? At Under2 we're not simply the top way to obtain search engine marketing in Vietnam, but as you see we're even certainly one of the leading solutions for information and facts for different marketing services.

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Video

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Marketing 2020: The Future of Advertising

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Conversation's insight into the future of marketing. Are you prepared for the change? To learn more and schedule a complimentary presentation please visit http://www.convoagency.com/marketing2020 http://www.convoagency.com

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Powerpoint

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Entrepreneurship Term 3 Final Exam Revision - DOWNLOAD TO VIEW

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Entrepreneurship Term 3 Final Exam Revision - DOWNLOAD TO VIEW