Marketing giant HubSpot has just released its annual marketing trends and predictions. According to the report, 2013 is looking to be an exciting year for the online marketing world so I have shared the predictions for you below:

• “CAMPAIGNS” FADE OUT, REAL-TIME MARKETING IS IN

In 2013 we’ll see many more marketers take advantage of the power of real-time communications to grow business. In 2013, buyers instantly engage with brands on their websites, talk back via social media like Twitter and Facebook, and follow breaking news in the markets they are interested. The old model of marketing built on a company timeline doesn’t work so well but after decades of “campaigns” planned way in advance, it’s difficult for marketers to change to a mindset based on speed.

• MARKETING BECOMES MORE ACCOUNTABLE FOR REVENUE GENERATION

Marketing activities will not only be measured on traffic and lead generation, but will further optimize processes that directly impact sales growth. “CEOs are paying more attention to marketing’s contributions and are holding them more accountable for revenue generation. Because of this, we’re starting to see a shift on how marketing is measured…to quotas and SLAs that are more aligned with sales goals.

• SOCIAL MEDIA GETS INTEGRATED

In 2013 savvy marketers will begin to leverage data from social media in all parts of their marketing strategy. Marketers sync social media activity with their contact databases to have additional behavioural data to better segment email messages and calls-to-action. Additionally, marketers will leverage social media behaviour for improved content personalization that will lead to improved lead to customer conversion rates.

• BE MOBILE OR FALL BEHIND

In 2013, marketers will finally list mobile as a major line item on their marketing strategy. Not only will there be continued investment in mobile optimized websites and email, but we’ll see mobile take a more important role when integrating with marketing campaigns. by the end of the year, mobile will become a more strategic and must-have channel for many businesses.

• SOCIAL & CONTENT IMPACT SEO EVEN MORE

The SEO of tomorrow will be less about having the right H1 tag or the right keywords on the page and more about creating really good, original content that is socially consumed and shared. Overall, SEO will go further and further away from on-page SEO, and focus on the various components of off-page SEO that come together for a holistic and powerful SEO strategy.

• MARKETERS EMBRACE ‘SMART’ CONTENT

In 2013, we’ll start to hear more about adaptive, ‘smart’ content. As context becomes increasingly important in any inbound marketing strategy, dynamic content enables marketers to serve highly personalized messages to the right audience at the right time.

• EMAIL LIVES ON

With such a dramatic shift toward more personal, unsolicited marketing, 2013 will see much more targeted, segmented email campaigns aimed at delivering more relevant content to recipients. We’re all after the holy grail of online marketing; sales-ready leads. The ability to segment email lists and personalize the content will help to maximize the effect of each email, resulting in more qualified leads.

• INBOUND, NOT AUTOMATION, BECOMES PRIORITY

In 2013, CMOs and senior executives will allocate more resources to creating a strong inbound engine – generating interest, traffic, leads, and conversions – to support the demand generation engine.

• MARKETING TECHNOLOGY EVOLVES

New technologies (mobile devices of all shapes and sizes, and location based services) will continue to grow but the best marketers will realize its not about how to jam more ads into new platforms, it is about how to use the new technologies to enhance your inbound powers of attraction.

• I’LL TAKE SOME CONTENT CURATION, PLEASE

Creating more and more content will be among the top priorities for marketing teams in 2013. In addition to the increase in allocating budget to content creation, we’ll find increasingly more curation services and “content marketplaces” that will help marketers deliver more in a content-heavy world.

• CONTENT CROWDSOURCING GROWS

As the social footprint grows, marketers will find more ways to leverage crowd creativity by build interesting and viral pieces of content with their network of fans and followers.

• MARKETING GETS GAMIFIED

Gamification presents a repeatable, reliable framework for increasing your social media and online marketing results. in the next year even small and medium sized companies will start to understand and utilize it’s core concepts.

• A PICTURE IS WORTH 1000 WORDS

With all this attention toward content as the holy grail of marketing, it doesn’t mean that written content is the only form that works. Sites like Pinterest and Instragram prove that visual content is really worth 1000 words. Infographics, photos, picture boards, video, and other forms of rich-media will increase over the coming years as humans look to digest more information faster than ever before.