A new year is around the corner, which means businesses are ramping up strategies to stay ahead of the upcoming trends for the year to come. To prepare for emerging trends, business executives and marketing directors must embrace a forward-thinking mentality and a willingness to modify existing operations, products, and services with evolving times and consumer needs, wants, and habits shifts.
Scott Crockett, Everest Business Funding’s CEO and Founder, has more than 20 years of experience adapting to market trends in the financial industry, building several consumer and commercial finance companies. Crockett highlights 2024 market trends in this article and how to adapt strategically.
Trend #1: Ethical and sustainable marketing
The modern consumer’s embrace of ethical and sustainable marketing is only growing and will continue to remain a marketing trend in 2024. Customers no longer want to simply buy a product or service but also want the peace of mind that what they are investing in is socially and environmentally impactful.
Strategy: Businesses should integrate ethical practices into operations that align with their core values and what their target audience values as well. Sharing the efforts put into place with customers is also great for enhancing marketing messaging and brand value. Shipping out products in recycled or biodegradable packaging, donating a percentage of profits to nonprofits positively impacting the world, or partnering with fair trade sources are examples of merging ethical and sustainable practices into an existing business.
Trend #2: More opportunities to take advantage of AI
The integration of AI into business and marketing is here to stay with trends that elevate marketing and advertising efforts from self-service ad platforms to AI-driven interactions. Automating ad placement processes and increasing sales is what AI is doing best, and there is more than one angle on how a business can use AI to strategically keep customers happy and boost sales.
Strategy: Satisfied consumers are returning ones, and AI-powered chatbots that are increasingly more personable can help prevent customer wait times and indecisive shopping. Platforms like The Trade Desk, Adform, and MediaMath for marketing teams can streamline advertising placement and management processes.
Trend #3: Social media as search engines
Though traditional search engines such as Google or Bing are still widely utilized, consumers are shifting more to using social media platforms as search engines to gather information and find products or services. Hootsuite reveals that 71% of consumers look to social media outlets for inspiration before committing to a purchase. In addition, because of the friendly interfaces and engaging content that apps like TikTok and Instagram provide, video marketing is predicted to continuously dominate other ways of marketing.
Strategy: Business marketing teams should make social media marketing their number one priority to reach target audiences through high-value content that clearly connects viewers to products, services, and brand information. The better the messages and visuals portrayed through social media posts, the higher the chance for viewers to share and spread content to wider target audiences.
About Scott Crockett
Scott Crockett is the founder and CEO of Everest Business Funding. He is a seasoned professional with 20 years of experience in the finance industry. Mr. Crockett’s track record includes raising more than $250 million in capital and creating thousands of jobs. Scott has founded, built, and managed several finance companies in the consumer and commercial finance sectors.