5 Marketing Trends To Pay Attention To In 2019 At each of my last three keynote addresses, I was asked this simple question: “What do you think is going to happen with marketing next year?” There are a lot of marketing speakers and sales speakers already shouting out the trends for 2019. It’s still only summer, but people are already trying to look ahead and see what’s around the curve. And I understand why: The world is changing a mile a minute, and it’s hard to scale, differentiate yourself, and maintain trust in the ever-changing marketing world. The more you can plan ahead, the better equipped you feel to manage those changes when they happen. Here are some midyear thoughts about what you need to keep an eye out for in 2019: 1. People are putting more trust in others they know and reputable content, not ads. We knew years ago that people were running away from traditional ads. A Nielsen study from 2015 showed that the top four most-trusted sources of advertising were: people you know, branded sites, editorial sites, and reviews. Ads are near the bottom of that list, and that fact hasn’t really changed. In fact, 30 percent of all internet users are expected to be using ad blockers by the end of this year, meaning traditional ads now won’t even reach 30 percent of possible target audience members. So, does this mean marketers should abandon ads completely? Not necessarily. I honestly feel there’s still a place for some ads, but they have to be more relevant and valuable to the consumer. This is why we see more money going to content marketing, influencer marketing, referral partnerships, and other methods that are designed to deliver actual value to audiences. This shift isn’t going to stop until ads start being more valuable for the consumer. 2. Creativity, not conformity, will set successful marketers apart. People have been saying for a long time that print is dead, but I recently came across a company that used software to obtain physical addresses for clients and started sending them print newsletters. Imagine that. In the age of MailChimp and HubSpot, this company went against the grain and spent extra money to do it the old-fashioned way. I was also surprised to find that its campaign was extremely successful — but why? Simply put, everybody else had gone digital, and...