If you're a marketer, you're probably feeling the impact of the transformational changes that have hit this field in the last couple of years. Hubspot's 2024 State of Marketing Report highlights many of these shifts from the perspective of marketers themselves. 

It reveals surprising insights that underscore a paradigm shift in how businesses engage with consumers. From the power of personalization to the shift toward using industry influencers more, the findings preview the direction that marketing is heading, the places where ROI might be the highest, and the biggest areas of opportunity. 

Check out our roundup of the most interesting general marketing insights from the report to get the context you need to succeed this year.

Methodology

The survey collected insights from more than 1,400 B2B and B2C marketers across 23 industries in 14 countries. The survey was conducted in September 2023.

Personalize content for your audience

Personalization will win marketing efforts moving forward. This idea will be especially true given that drawing traffic to on-site content through search is already becoming more challenging. Answers to top-of-funnel queries, which are often baked into easily producible SEO content, can now be surfaced quickly through generative AI-powered chat boxes in search engines.

The report spent some time detailing the power of personalization. Here are the biggest insights we found.

• 75% of marketers believe a personalized experience increases sales and the likelihood of a contact becoming a repeat customer.
• AI-powered personalization in marketing can increase ROI by up to 70%, according to a statistic referenced in a report supplied by Kibo Commerce.
• Marketers whose brands give customers a personalized experience are 215% more likely to say their marketing strategy in 2023 was very effective compared to marketers at brands that don’t offer a personalized experience.
• 96% of marketers say personalization leads to repeat business, and 94% say it increases sales.
• 72% of marketers agree that AI tools like chatbots help them personalize the experience customers get with their company. There are many AI-specific insights like these in the report. We covered the best of them in a companion piece you should explore: The Biggest AI Insights from Hubspot’s 2024 State of Marketing Report

However, you can’t personalize content for your audience if you don’t know who that audience is. 

• Only 65% of marketers have high-quality data on their target audience. This requirement for more information results in a notable gap in customizing content to align with the unique preferences and needs of the audience.

Once you know your audience, you can personalize content around the situations they might encounter. Build content to address their specific needs. Allow your content to answer their questions before they have them. Offer information they didn't know they needed.

Influencer marketing

• Influencer marketing will grow significantly in 2024, with 50% of the marketers who use it planning to increase their investment.

• 47% of marketers have reported success with micro-influencer partnerships. Micro-influencers provide access to engaged, loyal communities at a more affordable rate.

• In 2023, 51% of marketers said they collaborate with creators or influencers. Marketers at B2C brands and agencies demonstrate a higher likelihood of working with influencers compared to those at B2B brands and in-house teams.

• Among marketing teams that labeled their efforts as "effective" in 2023, 53% invested in influencer marketing, contrasting with only 25% of marketers who categorized their strategies as "ineffective."
• 49% of marketers engaging with influencers do so repeatedly. 
• Once influencers grasp a brand's voice, tone, and guidelines and establish awareness with their audience, subsequent campaigns yield similar or improved outcomes.

[.blog-window]“Brands that partner with a select few creators in their niche create demand and drive sales through channels like YouTube, Newsletters, Podcasts, and social. More than half of our YouTube demand comes from creator partnerships. Our audiences want to learn from credible experts over institutional brands. This mix of owned and creator media is helping propel our business forward.” - Kyle Denhoff, HubSpot Director of Marketing on the Media Team [.blog-window]

Email marketing

In marketing, all the talk of late has been about the major changes hitting SEO in the wake of generative AI and Google’s latest updates (and rightfully so). So it might be easy to forget that investing in email marketing is still very important. In fact, Hubspot said email is tied for second place as the channel that provides the most ROI for marketers. 

• Analysts expect the number of email users to grow by 2.5% in both 2024 and 2025 until the number of email users worldwide hits a projected 4.73 billion.

Use email to overcome a lack of cookies

Marketers are experiencing a significant shift in data collection practices. Google's plans to phase out third-party cookies addresses privacy concerns, prompting businesses to embrace first-party data and contextual information without compromising privacy. A quarter of marketers intend to gather first-party data from customers, addressing user security and the need for high-quality data on target audiences.

With all this in mind, email can replace the cookie as an ideal platform for collecting self-reported, first-party customer data. 

The report offered a play-by-play of how to build first-party data into your email strategy.

1. Think about the data already at your disposal and the data you still need.
2. Not all data has the same value, so figure out which metrics to prioritize.
3. Don't make data collection feel like an interrogation or pulling teeth for customers. Take a gentle approach.
4. Establish a hierarchy for data priorities based on your existing database.

How to personalize emails more

We touched on the importance of personalization. This idea very much applies to email as well. Hubspot offered a variety ways to take advantage of your cookie-free first-party data to personalize emails for your audience.

• Personalized content and product recommendations based on past
• Countdown timers
• Embedded polls
• Nearest store map
• Personalized images
• Social media feeds
• Social signals

From a technical perspective, there are a variety of ways to boost your email marketing capabilities in AI tools. 

• Use templates that allow emails to be quickly and easily personalized. 
• Create brand voices for different personas/newsletters.
• Tap integrations (like the Jasper API, Jasper Everywhere so it appears in your CRM and/or your email platform).

Invest more in social media — specifically video content 

• Marketers said that Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok have had the strongest historical ROI for their businesses. These insights also align with where marketers are investing in 2024. 
• Short-form video is the #1 format, offering the highest ROI and will see the most growth in 2024.
• 25% of marketers plan to invest more in short-form video than any other format in 2024.
• 56% of marketers using TikTok will increase their investment next year, the highest of any platform.

[.blog-window]“Use social listening tools to understand which low, medium-, and high-intent questions prospects and customers are asking, then work with the Social Media team to create content answering those questions — or, even more powerfully, enabling brand advocates to answer it for them.” — Aja Frost, HubSpot Director of Global Growth[.blog-window]

The insights from HubSpot's 2024 State of Marketing Report highlight a dynamic shift towards more personalized, influential, and technologically savvy marketing strategies. Marketers who adapt to these changing trends can not only anticipate greater engagement and ROI but also forge deeper, more meaningful connections with their audience. Who can't help but be excited about that?

To see even more insights, check out The Biggest AI Insights from Hubspot’s 2024 State of Marketing Report.