What does the bleeding edge of marketing look like in 2023? KAYBE were at DMEXCO in Cologne, Germany, to find out. We pride ourselves on being at the forefront of innovation within the marketing industry, and DMEXCO serves up a perfect opportunity to be a part of this drive towards a future filled with better, more effective marketing. So, without further ado, here are KAYBE’s Christiane Baier’s & Chris Oliver’s top-five takeaways from DMEXCO 2023…
A.I. Dominates DMEXCO
Surprise surprise, right? It may have been predictable that A.I. would dominate the event, but nothing about what we learned was predictable. We learned what (or who) you should be scared of, how to master it and a mind-boggling stat about ChatGPT’s meteoric rise as we explored A.I. at DMEXCO.
Should you be scared of A.I.? No, but you should be scared of the people using it. As always, people are the problem – haha! Deep down, we all know this already, but DMEXCO gave us a nice reminder of the fact that A.I. is powerless without humans guiding it. Of course, that means it’s a powerful source of good in the right hands and a source of evil in the wrong hands. On that note, it’s also worth remembering that A.I. needs people to supply the human touch that makes the output great. So, as a content writer, maybe I should focus my energy on fighting other content writers, not the machines!
But how do you prepare to deliver a good A.I. prompt? Information, information, information. The more data and information you can feed into an A.I. platform like ChatGPT, the better the output will be. Let’s say I’m asking the software to write me next week’s blog, I should describe the most popular subjects in the last year’s worth of articles, the service we sell the most, our most profitable service, where the majority of our readers are from, what point in time it will be published and so on and so forth.
Oh, and the stat: It took Netflix 3.5 years to reach ONE MILLION USERS, Facebook 10 months, Spotify 5 months, Instagram 2.5 months and ChatGPT… 5 days!
Video rules the world!
The Buggles once said “Video killed the radio star” in the first-ever music video on MTV. If you think that’s ironic, here’s me writing a blog about how video is the new old King of Marketing
But hey, DMEXCO speaks the truth: including videos in your content – particularly social media content – sends engagement through the roof! Not only that, if you have videos in your content (like, say, this blog) then you will keep users on the page much, much longer.
With that said, it’s worth noting that just videos for the sake of videos aren’t the right path. As we learned at DMEXCO, the quality of the content and – critically – the accessibility of it, will impact engagement to a great extent. For example, even something as simple as failing to optimise your video content for mobile will hamper engagement.
Hyperpersonalisation: are you talking to me?
Yes, marketers are talking to you! As a marketing agency, the idea of being able to distribute a personalised video to hundreds of customers or prospects while creating just a single video is absolutely amazing. We know hyperpersonalised marketing is much, much more effective, but it’s time-consuming and expensive. So, being able to speak directly to consumers, by name, through A.I.-generated content that can be created in bulk could revolutionise the landscape.
With that said, this doesn’t mean traditional marketing is dead. Small businesses, or businesses with smaller budgets, aren’t going to perish because of A.I. personalisation that they can’t afford (although we were surprised that it’s really not that expensive!). There was an emphasis at DMEXCO on the fact that this is a step forward, but not one that will leave smaller businesses to drown.
Changing the CTA landscape
Which call to action (CTA) would you be more likely to click: one that takes you through to speak to a sales rep, or one that takes you to a video explaining everything you need to know?
According to DMEXCO, there’s a very high chance that it’s the latter. An interaction-free CTA is, statistically speaking, much more effective with a 17% higher conversion rate. Combine that with the knowledge that videos increase engagement AND the ability to create hyperpersonalised videos that speak to consumers by name, and you’ve got yourself a knockout of a CTA.
While this is fantastic for many marketers, it will likely put many consumers off. For that reason, one of our main observations after DMEXCO was that the human approach has never been more important for the likes of small businesses as off-put consumers run in fear of futuristic marketing and seek safe haven in more traditional, human-led marketing. It’s an opportunity to gain an upper hand and carve out a niche.
Think fast! Impromptu and personal marketing is effective
It may sound strange (or it certainly does to me) to say that your marketing content will be more effective if it’s unplanned and made up on the spot. But why? Because it’s real, it’s personal and it’s relatable… I assume!
This wasn’t so much a lesson learned from experts at DMEXCO as it was from the personal experience of Christiane and Chris. The dynamic duo, donning t-shirts saying “talk to me about marketing”, bumped into Shraddha Dwivedi, a fellow marketing expert & enthusiast who took them up on the t-shirt offer, at a red crossing outside DMEXCO. Not only was the conversation enlightening and interesting, but they also discovered that impromptu content – particularly on social media – based on personal experiences generates plenty of engagement.
KAYBE is the best marketing agency in the world!
This was officially announced at DMEXCO, and we’re very honoured to have the title. We’d like to thank our fans, our families and… OK, maybe it wasn’t official, but we believe it. So, why not put us to the test by clicking here and speaking to us about what we can do for your business? If we’re truly the best, we’ll knock it out of the park. If not? Well, we wouldn’t even entertain the thought!
