Based on Unica‘s Future Trends survey, here are some of the channels that will influence digital marketing in the near future.

Email marketing: still in the lead with more than 90% of marketers referring to it, email marketing is the most widely adopted tactic. For the moment businesses still rely on email databases and this slowly changes to consumer engagement via social networking websites. The latter method is more digestible for users that are already there, surfing among friends, pokes, pictures and statuses. The switch will take some time and even the technological savvy brands are barely scratching the surface of a channel that develops over night.

Geo-location: Adage.com quotes research firm Borrel as saying that “location-based mobile spending will hit $4 billion in 2015, an increase of nearly 12,000% from the $34 million spent in 2009.” Again a tactic in its pubescence, geo-location is seen by some as a field mined with privacy protection laws that also change as the technology develops. There are brands that broke the ice of involving consumer through geo-location. Starbucks, a good case practice of a business that rides on the wave of social media, has teamed with Foursquare, a social platform that plays on geo-location, to award clients that check in one if their outlets through the Foursquare platform.

Mobile marketing: Unica states that “over one third of marketers (36%) are already conducting some type of mobile marketing, and adoption will increase with an additional 40%.” In today’s world, smart-phones are becoming more and more popular, earlier versions affordable for the masses. People can read email, take quality pictures, streamline video, upload content, blog and update almost at their desire. This opens a new realm for marketers, with the more creative feeling like a kid in a candy shop.

To be continued…