Here are some of the exciting marketing trends in store for the year ahead, as predicted by ‘The Marketer’, the magazine of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

1. The only place to be seen this year is on screen, especially in the medium of video, where limited advertising budgets will have maximum effect and brands will be attempting to attract consumers’ attention through gamification and interactive apps.

2. According to the report IDC Predictions, 2012 will see more money spent on tablets and mobiles than PCs, so marketers will need to reflect this in communications with their customers. It’s not enough for your website to work on a PC screen; that is not where most of your customers are viewing you.

3. Marketing to baby boomers could be the next untapped niche. As people live and work longer more marketing will be targeted at the over-55s. This will lead to the creation of more products that are tailored to their specific needs and more communication that talks to them in their own language (including correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. 2012 could be a good year for the apostrophe!)

4. Your purse or wallet could soon become a collector’s item. Contactless payment devices like QR codes will enter the mainstream in 2012.

5. Community focused initiatives are set to capture consumers’ attention and loyalty, with local marketing becoming more important than global marketing.

6. There is likely to be a growth in DIY health apps – helping to monitor and improve consumers’ wellbeing ‘on the go’ (although surely we would need fewer health apps if we weren’t ‘on the go’ quite as much?)

For more details of all of these trends, visit The Marketer’s website – or give me a call and I’ll investigate any trend you  think may be particularly useful to your business.