2012 Trends to Watch: Marketing

2011 was a year of collaboration in marketing. Marketers worked more closely with their sales counterparts, partnered with IT to harness new technologies for customer engagement, and even joined forces across marketing silos to improve the multichannel customer experience. But that was just the beginning.

The alignment of marketing and sales will continue to grow in importance as the purchase process continues to evolve. An increasing number of customers are conducting in-depth research and seeking recommendations from their social networks before talking to a company's sales rep. Consequently, industry experts expect that marketing and sales teams will collaborate even more closely to ensure that salespeople have the information they need when they need it—and that marketing communications and lead nurturing are timed to match prospects' stage in the buy cycle.

Experts also predict that 2012 will be the year mobile and geo-location offerings become a standard way of connecting with their on-the-go customers. These mobile efforts will further support the trend of personalizing customers' social experiences, as marketers look to deliver more relevant offers and advertisements based on previous interactions.

Here, several industry insiders offer their forecast on key marketing trends and how companies can optimize their marketing efforts in 2012: