We ask marketers for their predictions every year at the E-mail Summit (an annual e-mail marketing conference hosted in the United States).

I chose to give my thoughts on the evolution of Internet marketing in 2015 before contacting experts.

Prediction #1: The theme of digital marketing this year is convergence.

The convergence of marketing and IT platforms developed for business has been witnessed and will continue to be seen. This pattern is expected to persist in the future. The lines between publishers (both print and electronic), brands, and marketing agencies are becoming increasingly blurred.

Getty Images launched the Curve project. Sugarstring, a news site owned by Verizon. Red Bulletin is a Red Bull-sponsored publication. These are all large-scale content projects created by businesses to promote themselves. More and more businesses are realising the value of personal engagement with their customers. They create their own audience without the help of other media.

Electronic and print media, on the other hand, develop content for businesses on their own, as they have in the past (when journalists wrote ads for their newspapers).

Tribune Publishing, for example, purchased a share in Contend, a content firm that creates premium content for global clients. Tribune Publishing owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and other newspapers. The Onion's in-house firm, Onion Labs, has come up with some truly interesting campaigns.

Advertising and marketing agencies are now more than ever under pressure from the media and brands. In this difficult situation, agencies will seek to get their piece of the pie by selling ideas and creativity. An example of this is the Anomaly agency, which made a project for EOS cosmetics. Also interesting is the case of 37signals, which went from a web studio to the developers of the Basecamp service.
 
 The flow of information, of course, will be huge. But this is only to the benefit of content creators of all stripes listed above. They get a loyal target audience with which to work. For example, conduct research on consumer preferences. Test products or services to gain a better understanding of the product and get feedback quickly.
 
 With all this, you need to remember about the most valuable resource - people. Brilliant marketers, copywriters, designers, analysts, they are the ones who create unique content.

The capacity to navigate a big stream of interrelated data and understand how to create relationships with the audience will be critical for marketers. This is critical for teams who want to master all aspects of digital marketing, including content, technology, analytics, and strategy.

That's why audience research, fostering participation, and creating relationships are all so important.

By providing readers with unbiased information, print media can earn credibility more rapidly. By engaging in a discourse with people and then leading them to websites for more information, such media can quickly find their dedicated audience. Links to websites in other offline media (such as radio and television) live significantly less.

Finally, there's integration. This corresponds to the "rapprochement" indicated in forecast #1. Users, unlike marketers, have a different perspective on communication routes. They simply want information from the sources they are familiar with. As a result, you must give content to them, regardless of where they are. Mobile devices, periodicals, e-mail newsletters, and social media networks are all used to spread information. By the way, this is another example of the "old-new," which we discussed previously.

Prediction #2: SEO is becoming more difficult, but with fewer hazards (hopefully).

I wouldn't say SEO is dead, but its efficiency is being questioned more and more. Someone believes that search engines' algorithms are always improving. Encourage marketers to create more engaging content while downplaying the value of various technical gimmicks.
Marketers, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly dubious of SEO as a result of continual change. Realizing that the promoted terms' high rankings might be lost in a flash.