Marketing Trends in 2016

Whether you're starting a new marketing plan, revising an existing one, or planning for a product launch later this year, keep these 2016 marketing trends in mind, say the experts:

• Ad blockers are increasingly the default for customers online. How will this affect your ability to reach target audiences? How will it affect tracking mechanisms and data integrity?
• It's an ad, ad, ad, ad world on social media. How will users react (see "ad blockers," above)? What will the increased clutter mean for advertisers?
• Segments can increasingly be niche because it's easy to identify and target segments that are small--even segments of one, based on behavioral tracking and other Big Data refinements.
• Brands must be customer-obsessed or else. Remember management guru Peter Drucker? He famously wrote that "the purpose of business is to create a customer." Still true in 2016.