What trends does your business need to keep afoot of in the marketing world? We've got the top three biggest trends in marketing and communications below. Read on to unlock the secrets and keep your business a step ahead of the rest.

1. Visual storytelling

We've seen firsthand the trend of lengthy news releases become shorter, image-driven stories. Sure, customers' attention spans are shorter than they've been before, but that's not all that's driving this trend.

Customers are doing more reading and learning on their mobile devices and social networks, too. What this means is that in order for your message to resonate, it needs to be explained in one Instagram picture or 140 characters.

When creating content for your business, stop telling your story with text and say it visually. Explore the incredibly beautiful world of infographics, illustrated tweets, videos or filtered Instagram pictures and video.

2. Hypertargeting your message

We now have the power to blast out our messages to a very specific target audience. Talking to large audiences that might like your product is a thing of the past. Instead, the conversation is now happening with an increasingly small, influential number of readers.

On Facebook, news syndication services, and soon Twitter, your messages can be targeted and only sent to those in a certain region, or those who with specific interests.

Getting your message out to the right crowd has never been easier with hypertargeting on social media.

3. Data-driven marketing and success

Data no longer stands alone. Now, marketing and public relations firms across the country use insights from data to support what elements of a campaign are working. This data allows us to transform and tweak campaigns as they continue on — allowing the greatest potential for success in PR.

Plus, we know what sites and articles are driving the most clicks to the websites. Armed with this knowledge, public relations and marketing pros can target the right publications time and time again.

Keep your eye on how your marketing materials are performing. Now, you can say without doubt what's having the biggest impact on brand awareness and even sales. Use the data to do more of what's working right and less of what's not. The guessing game is over in the world of marketing.