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The U.S. telecommunications industry is expected to see 3.67% annual growth over the next five years. The emergence of new, big-name players to challenge industry stalwarts like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast is driving growth. These newbies to the space include household names like Meta, Amazon, Google, and SpaceX.
This growth, combined with relatively robust merger and acquisition activity, creates a rapidly changing landscape for what is a $443 billion industry. With so much change afoot in the sector, it can be challenging for marketers to keep up with telecom industry trends. This blog is designed to help make things a little easier on that front.
Below is an overview of 10 noteworthy telecom industry trends that are likely to impact business and marketing activity in the sector this year. These trends indicate that many leading telecommunications companies are:
Knowing these trends can help inform your telecom marketing strategies for this year and, potentially, beyond. Let’s dive in, starting with the cloud.
Cloud-based solutions such as infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and software as a service (SaaS) are in huge demand. These services enable enterprises to leverage scalable computing resources, enhance agility, and reduce IT infrastructure costs.
Unlike edge computing, where users can more quickly process data in real time in a more localized way (i.e., closer to the devices and servers providing that data), cloud computing handles far greater volumes of non-time-sensitive data.
Many telecom companies are expanding their portfolio of cloud services to meet rising customer demand for this capability. So, if your telecom business is not yet offering and marketing cloud-based solutions, you could be losing market share to your competitors who already do.
Consumers and regulators in the United States and around the globe are pushing for greater transparency in how businesses handle and safeguard customer data. Clearly communicating data privacy policies is vital, and telecom marketers must be proactive — and transparent — in their approach.
If you’re doing business in the European Union and are already compliant with that jurisdiction’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) don’t assume your customers know it; tell them about it. The same goes for California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The CCPA was amended by California voters and additional privacy protections relating to sensitive personal information such as Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and precise geolocation went into place on January 1, 2023, as part of the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA).
Demonstrating that your telecom business is up to date with data privacy policies, security measures, and compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA helps build brand trust and confidence with customers.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are the most transformative and consequential technologies to impact telecommunications since 5G (which we’ll discuss later in this post.) Integrating AI into networks and operations optimizes performance, automates repetitive tasks, and improves customer service.
Leading telecom companies are already leveraging AI-powered predictive analytics to track and forecast when maintenance is needed to maintain network reliability and efficiency. Less network downtime enhances the customer experience and promotes brand loyalty. And many telecoms now use AI-driven tools like chatbots to provide customers with an enhanced level of communication with customer service, marketing, and sales teams that smoothes the overall customer journey.
According to CISA, the communications industry is “one of 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.”
Telecoms are thus a top target for cybercriminals. According to cybersecurity firm Cyble, over 74 million telecom customers were hit by data breaches in the first two months of 2023 alone. In 2024, we’ve already seen major data breaches impacting companies like AT&T and Verizon.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that telecom operators are prioritizing cybersecurity measures to protect their networks, infrastructure, and customer data. They are investing in tools to mitigate cyber risks and safeguard against data breaches and cyberattacks, which can come from phishing, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks, as well as malware, ransomware, and even insider threats.
A related telecom industry trend to watch is quantum computing. Quantum communications are in an early stage but hold tremendous potential for creating highly secure communications. Quantum uses single points of light—photons—to transmit data. These photons are very fragile—so fragile that if a hacker intercepts one, its quantum state changes, leaving traceable evidence that it was interrupted. (There’s a short but excellent explanation of how this works here, if you are interested.)
Thanks to the expansion of the 5th-generation mobile network (5G), telecom providers are delivering ever-faster data speeds and greater network capacity. 5G wireless technology offers a more robust user experience than its predecessors 1G-4G. It is estimated that by 2035, 5G will be responsible for supporting over $13 trillion in global economic output.
5G is more scalable and can handle bigger data loads, which is one reason it is associated with the Internet of Things (IoT). 5G can also support advanced technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
The first 5G Advanced networks and devices are likely to be commercially available in 2025. Yet, while this faster mobile capability rolls out, the stage is already being set for 6th generation (6G). 6G will offer increased capacity, improved mobile coverage and reliability, faster peak speeds, and reduced latency. This should enable 6G to fully incorporate AI at the edge and in networks, enable reliable operation of autonomous vehicles, speed automation in industrial manufacturing and power “smart factories” and optimize virtual healthcare.
One telecom advertising trend marketers will want to track closely is personalization. Better technology and more efficient data analysis make personalization possible.
Consumers today want personalized and frictionless omnichannel experiences from the brands and businesses they choose to interact with. According to global consultancy McKinsey, “71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions … and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.”
The upshot: Telecoms must strive to create a seamless, personalized omnichannel journey for customers so they have the same experience whether they are at their computer, in a store, surfing on their smartphone, or making a call to a contact center. Invoca’s conversation intelligence platform can help with that effort. It not only bridges the gap between online and offline customer interactions but also includes features enabling further personalization.
For example, Invoca PreSense provides call center agents with context for calls by providing data derived from a caller’s online journey before a conversation takes place. An agent might know what products a caller has in their shopping cart and which webpage they last visited before calling. Invoca also reduces call transfers by using intelligent routing to put callers through to the right agent or department based on data gleaned from PreSense.
PreSense also reduces call times, since agents already know the context of each call and can jump right into the conversation. This improves efficiency and allows agents to handle more sales inquiries. With Invoca PreSense, DIRECTV’s sales team has improved their close rates by an impressive 110%! (To learn more, read the DIRECTV case study.)
Another telecom advertising trend to keep tabs on is influencer marketing. More telecom marketers are collaborating with influencers and brand ambassadors these days to reach new audiences, build credibility, and drive engagement.
Telecom influencers include trade journalists, research analysts, independent consultants, and industry executives. Telecom influencers with large followings in niche topics such as 5G, cybersecurity, and the IoT can help telecom marketers amplify their company’s messages and increase brand awareness.
Strategies like working with influencers can be crucial to telecom marketing campaigns because they don’t squeeze the budget too much. Even so, telecom marketers are typically under pressure to defend their budgets, and that’s true in good times and bad.
One way to forestall budget cuts is to be proactive about showing the chief financial officer and CEO how well marketing is delivering when it comes to qualified sales leads, filling the sales funnel, and driving conversions. This can be a difficult task if you only have access to data telling one side of the story: the digital journey. Offline attribution data, such as from phone conversations, is harder to pin down unless you have the right technology in place.
AI-powered call tracking and conversation intelligence software such as Invoca digitizes offline data so that it can be analyzed and matched with online data to deliver a complete picture of the customer journey. This fuller picture of the overall marketing initiative allows marketing to prove return on ad spend (ROAS) and deliver true attribution data to those holding the purse strings.
What’s more, having access to all of this data allows marketing teams to see which campaigns are working so that they can optimize their budgets.
The telecommunications industry is riding a wave of connectivity due to 5G, AI, the cloud, the proliferation of connected devices, and other technological advancements. A similarly impressive expansion of the IoT and of IoT applications, such as industrial IoT and smart cities, is driving even greater demand for connectivity solutions and services.
Many top telecom companies are helping to expand these developments further by offering IoT platforms, network connectivity, and management solutions to support diverse IoT smart use cases across many industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, and home automation.
This telecommunications industry trend is one you would logically expect to see in a sector that provides consumers with digital connectivity: digital transformation.
However, you might also be surprised to learn that the telecommunications industry, overall, is behind the curve with digital transformation in many respects. While it provides many critical tools that help other businesses transform, it is still essentially a phone-based business.
Digital transformation in the telecommunications industry is more of a cultural shift linked to new technologies that haven’t been fully adopted by some companies yet. One of these under-used technologies is conversation intelligence, which uses AI and machine learning to track and analyze traditional customer interactions, such as phone calls, to deliver insights into sentiment, customer preferences, and service issues.
The use of conversation intelligence can help telecom companies enhance their customer support capabilities as well as inform and refine their marketing strategies.
By implementing marketing strategies that align with these 10 trends, telecoms can gain an edge in a very competitive industry landscape. Marketers should use all the technology tools at their disposal, including AI and machine learning, to create seamless omnichannel journeys for their customers that build loyalty and drive conversions.
AI-driven conversation intelligence data from the telecommunication industry’s “bread and butter” — customer phone calls — delivers insights that can help teams develop more effective telecom marketing strategies. They can understand customers on a deeper level, target them with relevant messaging more effectively, and deliver standout customer experiences, all while optimizing their marketing spend.
Want to learn more about how Invoca can help you supercharge your telecom marketing strategy? Check out these resources:
As a next step, you can set up a customized demo to see firsthand how Invoca’s call tracking and conversational analytics can help your telecom business optimize its marketing approach and deliver better customer experiences.
