iGB Affiliate 71 Oct/Nov | Page 21

TRAFFIC SECOND THAT EMOTION With tech and automation driving more of the marketing process, content marketers must not lose sight of the human at the heart of the strategy, writes Adrian Niculescu ONE OF THE QUESTIONS I’m asked most after speaking at conferences and events is: “What’s the next big thing in the coming year?” Because this issue will appear in October, I wanted to address this subject from an unexpected angle. Why? Well, I’m the kind of guy that reads a lot of books. I love doing that but at the same time I teach, coach, write, speak based on my practical experience – the wins but also the failures. We are living in demanding times and the business landscape is more competitive than ever. My focus is on delivering massive value, actionable steps and strategies that can be applied the next day. You can have the best information but it is only potential power. It becomes actual power only when it is applied. As marketers and sales people, we are always on a quest to find the next Facebook, the next e-mail delivery system, CRM, automation platform, bot or robot. This is normal, by the way, but we can forget things beyond technology: our end customer, potential business-to-business representative or developer affiliate. We are targeting a human being who sees the beauty of the world, hears the drums of nature, smells the flavours of our planet, tastes Lisbon’s amazing food and touches and feels the curves of reality. In a nutshell, they have these five senses and even if one of them is lost it is immediately replaced by one of the others, which is enhanced. We see amazing developments in robots “using AI but there is a long to go before they “During the heyday of MySpace, who could imagine that in few short years Facebook would transform it into a virtual ghost town?” match our senses. I love the technology but it comes on top of the basics – and we need to start from there. During the heyday of MySpace, who could imagine that in few short years Facebook would transform it into a virtual ghost town? Maybe next year Bitcoin will no longer have 50% of the market and users will migrate to Etherium, Cloudcoin, Ripple or Electroneum. Blockhain could become a fad and be replaced by better systems, such as Raida. Something better than iOS or Android will be invented. Humans are creatures of habit and once we move on from one thing to another it is usually a one- way journey. As marketing and sales people, we must be ahead of times; we must sense these movements and adjust our communication, business strategies and systems to embrace those changes. Next year technological progress will be faster again and the current compressing of decades in years and years in months will be iGB Affiliate Issue 71 OCT/NOV 2018 19