Neil Cooper writes in UKMN .. Like many others I need to start planning for 2013 soon. I need to think about all the stuff we need to do, stuff I want to do and stuff that I hope we’ll do. I then need to come up with a budget that is too high in the hope that the final figure is closer to what I actually need. You know the game…

So as I plan for 2013 I’ve been trying to think about what I see as important for next year and what I hope/expect to see emerging. I’ll certainly be embracing these and it will be great to see other marketers pushing boundaries in these areas. I’d be very interested in hearing what others think.

#1 – Embracing offline
I’m not anti-digital, in fact I think we’ll place less emphasis on dividing what we do into sub-categories. In 2013 more brands will decide to go retro and personal in an attempt to cut through the noise facing decision makers. Direct mail is underused but with the creative options available, plus the wow factor of getting something through the post, we’ll place more emphasis into targeted and highly creative campaigns – and they’ll work too.

#2 – Warped reality
Augmented reality is accepted as a mainstream technology and thanks to providers like Aurasma, it is now cheap to really embrace the technology. Its ability to bridge the gap between real and virtual worlds will help us easily embed creativity and a bit of sparkle into our everyday marketing. Next year we’ll use AR to stand out from our slow-footed competitors.

#3 – Visual story telling
Marketing has always been about control and presenting a polished image of the company, products and brand. In 2013 we’ll use amateur photography to tell stories about our company, products and people, whether that is through Instagram, Flickr or pinterest. We won’t give over complete control to our staff but we’ll see the benefit of letting them tell stories from their unique perspectives.

#4 – What? No mobile website?
According to the IAB, a large percentage of businesses don’t have a mobile-friendly website. In 2013 there will suddenly be a big wake-up call for businesses who will launch smartphone and tablet versions of their website. This will also correspond with a move over to HTML5, which will see some harmonisation between our internet properties.

#5 – Embrace the code
Digital marketing is no longer a new discipline to marketers. It is just part of what we do. In 2013 we’ll spend more of our time learning about the code behind the web and apps – HTML, CSS and Java – and we’ll start embracing it and our deepening understanding will fuel further creativity.

When we set about organising the Another Marketing Conference (on October 18th) we sat and thought about all the things that were important to us, and then we asked friends and peers. We touch on the above major trends during the conference, as well as a few other issues like internal communications, behavioural theory and understanding creativity.

You can read more about the awesome speaker line-up here: www.another.uk.com/speakers.