he first half of the year is already over. We try not to fall into clichés, but developments in the field of AI, search, and social media are following each other at a rapid pace. Have you been away for a while? I’ve got you covered. I have listed the most important must-reads in the field of online marketing for you. Take the time for this deep dive and you will be ready to rock the second half of this year.
Joris Toonders traditionally shares his outlook on the marketing trends for the coming 12 months every year. He doesn’t make it easy for himself with a handful of trends that you could have guessed. He provides a complete list of no less than 22 trends, which he discusses quite extensively. I would like to highlight a few.
1. Recruitment marketing
Filling vacancies is more challenging than ever. At the end of 2021, a tipping point occurred where there were more vacancies than there was a large unemployed labor force. We seem to have passed the peak, but in the third quarter of 2023, the tension on the labor market is still high: 114 vacancies per 100 unemployed.
Recruitment marketing is still in its infancy. A great opportunity to look beyond just a careers website. For example, with a strong recruitment campaign on Meta. Anoek de Jong explains how to do that in this article .
But how do you become a magnet for candidates who really suit you? Roy van den Anker advises:
Under-promise, over-deliver
Only promise what you can deliver. Especially with the rise of review platforms like ‘Glassdoor’, where you can read the honest story of the people who work there.
Stop the purpose bullshit
Good intentions in the field of sustainability or social responsibility? Share them only when it is real. Greenwashing works against you.
Think of the back door
Don’t let the hard work of recruiting go to waste netherlands email List 6 million contact leads because employees leave through the back door. It’s easier to retain people than to recruit new people.
2. Conversational commerce
A major change in recent years is the growing need to 5 event trends in 2025: conscious conferencing, consciously dealing with AI & more communicate with companies via text. More and more people are less used to calling, but prefer to send a message with a question. Conversational commerce must ensure that all customer communication flows seamlessly together and thus optimizes the user experience.
Want to get started with conversational commerce? Here are some reading tips for you:
What are the trends in conversational for 2024? Eveline Erkelens shares them with you
Elsbeth van den Berg shares tips on how to deal with misunderstandings and lack of understanding in chatbots
From GenAI and TikTok service to automation: Erik Bouwer discusses 8 trends in customer contact
Zoë Glas outlines the future of customer service
3. Retention
It sounds so logical to take good care of your existing customers, instead of spending most of your time looking for new customers. Yet the question of what the Customer Lifetime Value of a customer is, often remains unanswered. Retention figures as the basis. Amazon and Bol have understood it well with their retention programs Prime and Select. What are you going to do in the ao lists coming (half) year to make your customers return?
4. Visual search
I myself am a big fan of Google Lens. The photo album on my phone is full of screenshots of shoes, bags and sunglasses that I have come across on Instagram that I then run through Google Lens to be able to add them to my wish list. And Google continues to develop. With MultiSearch you can use an image and then add text to it. That one pair of sunglasses, but in brown, for example.
According to Vivianne van Strijland, visual search is even the answer to changing search behavior (from desktop to mobile, stronger preference for visual content).
For Frankwatching, search is incredibly important. 20 years ago, Frank wrote his first blog and at the moment we publish about 15 substantive articles every week in the field of online marketing, AI, content, social media and communication. With that, we have built up a considerable authority. And we work hard to keep that authority high: high-quality content, optimized metatags, optimized images, keywords in titles and subheadings… You know the drill.
This article by Gabriëlla Modderman convinced me that we should not only focus our search strategy on standard search engines such as Google and Bing. And Sjef Kerkhofs also agrees that the link between social media and search engine optimization (SEO) is becoming increasingly important: “For younger internet users, social media function as search engines, which marketers should use to reach their target group. This offers