Gone are the days when the ubiquitous marketing department ponder over fate and tea to explain points of reference related to sales and then decide to have a discussion with the manufacturing or sales, which ideally would be another department. The era of working from silos is long gone and with the advent of the smart phone, Digital Marketing is today the precursor to success.

In this article, we would take a quick glimpse on what is driving Digital Marketing north in 2016. 

1. Let us start with the obvious. Mobility is now a necessity and with IOT (Internet of Things) slowly becoming the next big thing, the venerable desktop is now a relic of the past. That I am writing this article from a desktop is probably ironic too, but with a billion plus sets of smart phones shipped in 2015, the writing is on the wall. Moreover, Google had recently released the megalomaniacal “Mobilegeddon”, a ranking algorithm, which will knock out sites which do not have a mobile presence. In fact, simply having a mobile optimized site is enough to create waves. That is what Google thinks and probably so do we.
2. The wearable: I did mention IOT and it being the next big thing. The wave is actually being driven by the wearable. Your watch, fitness wrist band, probably shirt and even your shoe are the ones guiding you. In the future they will. All of them will be connected to each other, either by Wi-Fi or NFC, collecting your data and keeping you informed about your next meal or doctor check up. These devices will lead the era of digital marketing by enhancing customer engagement and comfort.
3. With competition, will rise demand. With demand, as economics suggests, will prices too will rise. Online advertisements, currently trying to break even, are expected to become costlier. Some companies may be forced off the field due to this, but most will accommodate this change and make hay while sun shines.
4. You Tube, that revolutionary viral video maker and propagator, expects a massive rise in videos, as more companies resort to visual advertisement. With that in video advertisement too will rise. With videos garnering more eyeballs and with a larger probability of brand recall, audio visual digital marketing will become the norm.
5. Google is revising its app indexing and doing it more aggressively now. It knows that the future lies in apps. It is more intuitive, less clumsy to handle and generally convenient for users to handle. With app ranking in place, expect a tsunami of app development and a mad rush to fill the respective online play stores. Digital marketing will become nuanced and developers and promoters of apps will need to innovate to drive the existence of their creations. In an app-centric universe, digital marketing will suddenly become the cornerstone of success. With a fast changing landscape, 2016 seems to be a pretty interesting year, with or without my desktop.