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We’ve come a long way from the belief that the same brand messaging should be present on every channel, but today’s marketers must consider ways to seamlessly and cohesively reach customers wherever they are. In our tech-crazed world, it’s easy to confuse multichannel marketing with multi-platform marketing that fills email inboxes, appears on social media feeds and entangles customers into your brand as they trek through the worldwide web. Although email campaigns, social media outreach and advertisements contribute to the modern customer journey, many customers opt to teach themselves about your brand before forging a relationship.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for marketing, espeically if your brand has an influencer marketing platform in place! While 2017 may be winding down, influencer marketing is continuing to trend up. In fact, according to HubSpot, 71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on a social media reference. Influencer marketing can give brands a more engaging and authentic voice with consumers, especially during the holidays when consumer spending is at its highest.

Marketing is getting really personal. Ads for the shoes you browsed three days ago follow you around the web. Your favorite restaurant sends you regular updates about their daily specials, complete with mouth-watering photos. Your pizza place notices just how often you order from them and recommend them on social media, so they send you a complimentary pizza and ask you to become an official affiliate. It’s a bizarre mix of convenient, slightly creepy, and incredibly effective.

The situation is a familiar one. Your email inbox begins to fill up with emails that read “Labor Day Sale!” and suddenly you’re typing in the coupon code LBDAY16 for 20 percent off your purchase. Chances are, if you manage an eCommerce shop, your customers have also used vouchers or coupon codes at some point to make a purchase. It’s a great way to capture first time-buyers and bring back your most loyal advocates for repeat purchases.

For centuries, word-of-mouth recommendations have influenced purchasing decisions on everything from buying a new car to restaurant recommendations to software vendors. It’s no coincidence that you and your network share a few of the same favorite things. Who doesn’t love hearing about a great product or service from a trustworthy source?

Traditional marketing teaches companies to think of customers as a bridge between inventory and sales. In the age of hypervisibility and technology, brands are adding resources to their marketing stack that allow them to build unique experiences instead of merely monitoring customer behavior. The most successful brands have started to rethink how their customers progress through the eCommerce funnel. For good reason, customers have the potential to become advocates, fans, and referrers of your brand. According to a recent survey conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of Ambassador, 82% of Americans say they seek recommendations from friends and family when considering a purchase.

Earlier this month, the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that digital streams would count toward album certifications. The announcement simultaneously captured contemporary consumption patterns and redirected 58 years of musical history. This was big news for popular artists like Rihanna, whose newly released Anti album sold only 460 physical copies on its release date, but earned a platinum certification (1,000,000 sales) in just 15 hours, thanks to digital streaming.

In digital marketing where the landscape is changing at the drop of dime, it’s important for marketers to lean on proven strategies – like how to create word-of-mouth marketing buzz – rather than staying on top of the latest trend that might negatively impact your bottom line, and eat up many of your resources.

As marketers start to plan for the coming year, there are a few key referral marketing strategies and notable social media trends to consider. How are you leveraging the power of word-of-mouth with your customers? Are you running multiple programs, like affiliate and influencer campaigns? Are you using new platforms like Tik-Tok? Are you engaging partners to expand your reach?

In most cases, the success of a partner program is almost always driven by a scientific blend of quantity (how many partners you have) and relevance (what you are offering to partners for sharing your brand).