Join me at the Sydney Hills Business Breakfast event on Wednesday March 9 2016 from 7am at the Castle Hill RSL where I will be presenting ‘5 Game Changing Marketing Trends for 2016’. Digital Marketing has undergone a substantial transformation in the last few years. Technology that incited the changes is growing at a faster pace than most can keep up with.

The collaborative economy is here to stay. Inspired and enabled by social networks this new business model has moved in with the help of Facebook friends, on a long-term let found on Airbnb, fully-furnished with items sourced on Gumtree and open for business before the competition can think straight thanks to Freelancer.

Ad-blocking is a hot topic in 2016 and for marketers the high uptake by mobile device users of Ad-blocking apps presents a real challenge.

How will they survive without advertising revenue?

Ad-blocking technology is forcing us all to rethink our approach to mobile advertising and marketing but is it a disaster? Will we be ruined?

Not necessarily. We’ve seen something similar before, when pop up blockers were added to mainstream browsers.

While we do think ad-blocking is a Game-Changer and will pre-occupy much of our energy and ingenuity going forward this year, Ad-blocking may prove a blessing in disguise.

At face value, ad-blocking represents a consumer-led backlash against the proliferation of intrusive online and mobile advertising.

Seth Godin is something of a Guru for marketers and as part of our series on Game-Changers in 2016, we could not go past Seth’s predictions for the profession.

He signals nothing short of a revolution.

Seth envisions marketers involved in every stage of product and service development.

He insists marketers need to become influencers so they can promote their brand wholeheartedly through channels that will be all the more reliant on peer-to-peer interaction.

He believes the old industrial model that equated marketing with advertising is dead and warns a lot of us will struggle to make the adjustment - that many will continue the pattern of buying time on as many channels as possible.

One of the looming issues for marketers in 2016 is the onset of Content Overload.

Content overload is the point at which the supply of online content outstrips the capacity of human beings to consume it. And it is a game-changer.

It’s one of those predictions that has proponents and deniers. A bit like climate change!

Proponents say, the exponential rise of online content in recent years will peak in effectiveness as audiences reach limits imposed by the number of waking hours.

In other words, humans have a finite capacity to consume our online content.

Here is a question for brands in 2016. Do you love your customers? How do you show them how you feel? Do you expect them to fall in love with your brand and stay that way?

If you struggle to identify how your customers are feeling the love, watch out. There is a wave of competition and disruption out there ready to sweep you away.

The challenge facing brands and marketers cannot be understated. 

We’ve seen the wave of disruption slam into traditional media. Television and print were among the first to be trammeled through competition from social media channels, online classifieds and now Netflix, Presto and friends.

At BrandManager we are excited about trends we see as game-changers in 2016. One trend that can’t be overlooked is the the pending wave of new enterprise app development thanks to App Indexing.

In 2015, Google announced its Mobile Friendly Ranking Algorithm that would give prominence to websites and content suited to mobile devices.

Brands immediately evaluated and improved their digital presence but there was a second aspect to the announcement.

In Part B, Google went on to promise mobile users they would soon be seeing more relevant app content in their search results through App Indexing.

Business owners can often be resistant to change even within our fast paced digital world relying instead on the practices they know and understand whilst accepting the low success rates and return on investment. When your current marketing is no longer performing or your brand takes a hit, it’s time to grab the opportunity presented to you and embrace inbound marketing. A recent conversation with @tonyeades had me thinking, if inbound could be applied to a cultural organisation, perhaps a church that is steeped in tradition, resisting change from progressive sides – what lessons can we take away for a business in need of growth?

Many of you are right now setting the course for your brand in 2016, right? Well, at BrandManager this month the focus is on developments and insights that we’ve identified as ‘game-changing’ - those trends that represent a new frontier for marketers.

One of the most intriguing of these is the all-powerful, all-fleeting micro moment.

The micro moment has emerged from within the world of mobile device users. It is the moment of action, born of a need. The need to know, the need to do, the need to go and the need to buy.