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The Future of Social MediaSocial media has grown increasingly popular in the past few years and has had a significant effect on the way companies do business. In the next few years, more changes will roll out as social media efforts expand outside of a company's marketing department into all aspects of a company's business.Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst for eMarketer, says advertising will not be the primary revenue driver and notes that others have said advertising has failed as a business model for social media.  Rather, the business models that show the strongest potential are in the areas of analytics, search and television. Additionally, location will become more important to social media with strengthened brand monitoring efforts. Despite the future changes to social media, one thing will remain the same: the source, or its users. “The voice of the consumer is only going to get louder and stronger,” said Ms. Williamson. “It will shape what social media is and what it will become. Not too long ago, a company might have made major changes to its products or services based on a few focus groups, some financial planning and a degree of gut instinct. Social media has already changed all that. And more changes will come.” Source: eMarketer; February 15, 2010 Labels: Advertising Spending, Marketing Trends, Social Media 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Behavioral Targeting the Solution to Consumer Ad Avoidance?A global media and advertising study found that consumers tended to avoid ads whenever possible. Two-thirds felt there were too many ads on television, and 39% felt there were too many online ads.The study included respondents from the US and Canada. US consumers were 44% more likely than last year to skip ads when watching television or listening to the radio, compared to only 41% more of Canadians.  One solution to consumers' tendencies to avoid ads is behavioral targeting, or making ads more relevant to consumers according to their interests; however, due to Internet privacy concerns, implementing behavioral targeting may be a challenge. Consumers may find themselves resistant and require more transparency from marketers, therefore rejecting behavioral targeting. Other advertising-related activities included consumers' involvement with social media. In terms of social networking, the change in activity compared to last year showed a small increase, with 9% more promoting a brand or ad on Facebook and 4% more following a brand on Twitter. Source: eMarketer; December 7, 2009 Labels: advertising tactics, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Social Media is a Marketing SuccessAccording to marketing pros, social media has found success as adoption and awareness continue an upward trend. A majority of companies have reported to be familiar with social networking, with ninety-one percent using at least one social media tool in 2009.Social networking and blogging have shown impressive growth in 2009, by 80% and 45% respectively. Twitter has also shown strong growth in 2009, although reports from 2007 and 2008 are not available.  Wikis, blogs and social networks have topped the list of types of social media tools companies have successfully adopted. These companies were primarily using social media to measure hits, comments, leads or sales. Studies also show how private companies are quickly adopting social media into their marketing plans. This year, nine percent of Inc. 500 companies did not use social media, compared to 43% in 2007. Source: eMarketer; December 2, 2009 Labels: Marketing Trends, Social Media, Social Networking 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Retailers Planning Holiday Marketing StrategiesThis holiday season, retailers are resorting to more traditional marketing tactics, such as paid search and e-mail marketing, to achieve company sales objectives. With the economy in a recession, it is important for retailers to successfully execute these strategies. Fifty-five percent of CMOs at leading US retailers plan to focus on e-mail promotions this holiday season, according to an October 2009 survey by BDO Seidman. Other strategies retailers are likely to focus on include free shipping offers, search engine optimization and social networking. Though social media usage is increasing at the highest rate this holiday season, a small portion of online retailers do not plan to incorporate sites such as Facebook and MySpace in an overall marketing strategy. On the other hand, 100% of retailers will send e-mails to their house lists, and a majority (63.9%) will not include mobile phone alerts in marketing strategies. Due to a disconnect between ads clicked and the company landing page, some of these efforts are not as successful as they have the potential to be. For example, two-thirds of advertisers did not have a landing page relevant to purchased keywords, causing misdirected searches. In order to avoid this, retailers need to improve landing pages and increase visibility of marketing messages on e-commerce websites.Source: eMarketer; December 1, 2009 Labels: E-commerce, Email Marketing, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. E-Mail and Social Media Marketing Popular Among Small BusinessesAlmost 75% of small businesses have included increased expenditure on e-mail marketing as one of their New Year's resolutions, according to a VerticalResponse survey. Following close behind, many smaller companies plan an increase in utilization of social media as an online marketing tactic, with almost 7 out of 10 agreeing that there are many benefits to be cited by employing such a strategy. Conversely, over 70% of companies polled planned on cutting back on or getting rid of online banner advertising altogether. The continued interest in e-mail marketing stems from the beliefs held by many small businesses of the benefits it can provide. The most commonly held opinion by those organizations who already participate in this marketing strategy is that it is an effective way of obtaining new prospects. This is also the most popular belief of small business that soon plan a foray into this field.  However, corporations that are currently in the process of implementing an e-mail marketing strategy do not see it as beneficial in terms of ROI or as a source of feedback on current campaigns, contrary to the opinion of small businesses with already established programs. Source: eMarketer, November 24, 2009 Labels: Email Marketing, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Measurement of ROI Lacking in Many Social Media ProgramsBusiness professionals are more likely to use social media for marketing purposes over any other business area according to a recent study by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education. 4 in 10 respondents reported they had used social media to help with internal collaboration and learning. 30% of professionals utilized social media for customer service and support, followed closely by use in sales and human resources at 25% and 21% respectively.   Available applications such as Facebook Insights and Google Analytics can be useful tools in determining the success of your social media campaigns. Other basic methods such as counting the number of Fans or Followers can give you a rough idea of the ROI that your company may be obtaining. Source: eMarketer, September 22, 2009 Labels: Industry, Marketing Trends, Social Media 0 comments. Click here to post comments. What is your marketing priority for 2010?According to a recent study published by Unisfair, marketer's top priorities for 2010 include new customer acquisition and customer retention and engagement. Thought leadership was also seen by many as an important factor to focus on for the next year. Creating a community for consumers was at the bottom of most marketer's to-do lists, with only 31% believing this to be a crucial focal-point.   Source: eMarketer, September 21, 2009 Labels: Email Marketing, Facebook, Marketing Trends, SEO, Social Media, Social Networking 0 comments. Click here to post comments. 10 Levels of Intimacy in Today's CommunicationHow we communicate has recently been transformed by Web 2.0 and Social Media. Today, our lives are more connected on a global scale than ever… it truly has become a world economy.However, it is interesting to see how this technology, though making it significantly easier to interact with our peers, has also altered how intimate our interactions are with each other. The graphic below is a neat representation of the present most popular forms of communication. It ranges from 10 as the most intimate to 1 as the least intimate. Communication in the most intimate range involves visual or auditory interaction, whereas the least intimate forms lack this. The ranking in this graphic is definitely a matter of opinion and subjective in nature. Would you categorize these 10 levels in a different way?  Labels: Industry, Internet Statistics, Internet Usage, Marketing Trends, New Technology, Social Media, Social Networking 0 comments. Click here to post comments. How Effective is Twitter as a Promotional Tool?As overall Twitter use continues to expand, so too has the interest of advertisers for using the service as a promotional tool. However, a discrepancy exists between consumers and advertisers over the effectiveness of Twitter as a medium for promoting products and services. While the majority of users seem to agree that Twitter is somewhat effective for promotions, it seems as if advertisers trend towards being more optimistic. In contrast, more consumers believe that the service is not effective for this purpose. These findings show that there might need to be broader consumer acceptance of Twitter before the service can be considered an effective marketing tool.Source: eMarketer, August 4, 2009 Labels: advertising tactics, Marketing Trends, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Mobile Advertising on the RiseAccording to the below graph, US mobile advertising spending is predicted to jump to $3.3 billion in 2012. That's about a 414% increase in expenditure compared to 2008. It is interesting to note that certain industries utilize mobile advertising more than others. In particular, broadcasting and cable TV, movies and entertainment, and automobile manufacturers held the number one, two, and three spots respectively in overall share.  When it comes to monetization of these ads, industries such as downloads and real estate have 100% of their mobile ad inventory paid for. However, Home/family struggles the most, managing to reach a mere 43%.  As the number of mobile phone users continues to grow, companies would be wise to reconsider their overall marketing strategy and invest a significant portion of their budget in mobile advertising. Source: eMarketer, August 4, 2009 Labels: Advertising Spending, advertising tactics, Marketing Trends, Mobile Web 0 comments. Click here to post comments. 34 Million Moms OnlineSince mothers are obligated to stay on top of the trends of their children, they have proven to be some of the most savvy internet users around. Over 34 million moms are online participating in social networking, researching products, shopping online and absorbing as much information as possible.Marketers must realize mothers are usually the key decision makers for family purchases, so they activities moms participate in across the web influence household purchases greatly.    Source: eMarketer, June 8, 2009 Labels: Advertising Spending, Internet Behavior, Internet Demographics, Internet Usage, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Trust Word-of-MouthNow, more than ever, trust is the top priority of consumers in the U.S. Last year only 10% of respondents believed advertisers were trustworthy, and as social media technologies create even more transparency this percentage has the potential to change dramatically.Word-of-mouth proves to be the most influential way for companies to market their brands since usually the most trusted source of information by consumers is recommendations from friends. Marketers should consider integrating word-of-mouth tactics across campaigns to allow positive feedback about their brand image to spread among friends virally.   Source: eMarketer, June 8, 2009Labels: Advertising Spending, Internet Behavior, Internet Demographics, Marketing Trends, ROI 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Drug Marketing DropsIs direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing by pharmaceutical companies flat-lining? Not yet. But the outlook isn’t good. TNS estimated in 2008 that total US DTC advertising spending would be $4.7 billion that year, down from $5.2 billion in 2007.    Source: eMarketer, June 3, 2009 Labels: Industry, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. B2B Marketers Turn to Digital TacticsNow that the downturn is in full swing—and some budgets are decreasing—marketers are being more selective as to where they deploy their marketing dollars. For most that means going online.  Source: eMarketer, May 27, 2009 Labels: Advertising Spending, Business-to-Business, Industry, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Are iPhones Good for Advertising?  Source: eMarketer, May 26, 2009 Labels: Advertising Spending, Marketing Trends, Media Buying, Mobile Web 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Brand Mentions Preferred over Ads51% of Internet users are likely to take action after reading online ads. Pop-up ads are unpopular with users with only 13% likely to take action after viewing. Click on image to see full break out. To a degree, these stats are affected by demographics. Older Internet users and whites are less likely to respond after reading an online-ad, compared to younger users and African-Americans and Hispanics. Click on image to enlarge and see all demographics. Source: eMarketer, April 20 2009Labels: Email Marketing, Internet Demographics, Internet Statistics, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Why Now Is Not a Good Time to Slash Your Marketing Research BudgetAccording to eMarketer, increasing or maintaining search marketing is very important in these economical times. Click on the image below to see the 2009 breakout of change in online marketing spending. Below shows the different areas of market research spending for 2008. Click image to enlarge.  Source: eMarketer, March 31 2009Labels: Advertising Spending, Email Marketing, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Tech Marketing Budget OutlookBelow are surveyed results of how people say their tech marking budget will change from 2008. Both the first and second half of 2009 show that most will decrease spend. Only 14% increasing budget in the first half of 2009 and 18% in the second half of a result of the current recession.  Source: B2B Magazine, March 9 2009Labels: Advertising Spending, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. And the Most Influential Media Is...In five major markets, TV still dominates Note: n=8,824; respondents were asked for their top three Note: includes broadcast networks, cable, spot, syndication and local TV advertisingSource: eMarketer, January 21 2009 Labels: Marketing Trends, Online Media, Online Video 0 comments. Click here to post comments. U.S Ad Spending Totals By Medium  Source: Advertising Age, December 29 2008 Labels: Advertising Spending, Industry, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Blogs Can Ease Customer CommunicationReadership has grown and so has consumer trust.A BuzzLogic and JupiterResearch study done August 2008 shows that over the past four years, there has been a 300% growth in monthly blog readership  Note: n=2,210; in the past 12 monthsBlog readers are also becoming increasingly influenced with their purchase decisions, and taking more action after viewing an ad on a blog.   Note: n=122Source: eMarketer, December 30 2008 Labels: advertising tactics, Blogs, Marketing Trends, Social Media 0 comments. Click here to post comments. B2B Marketers Plow Ahead in 2009  Source: eMarketer, December 19 2008Labels: Advertising Spending, Business-to-Business, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Retailers Get Social with Facebook  Source: eMarketer, October 29 2008 Labels: E-commerce, Marketing Trends, Social Media 0 comments. Click here to post comments. Paid Search Spending Pops Source: eMarketer, October 21 2008Labels: Marketing Trends, Paid Search 0 comments. Click here to post comments. How Much Marketing is Digital? Note: n=89 who currently use marketing and/or advertising agency,*i.e. Internet, e-mail, mobile, social media, etc. Source: eMarketer, September 11 2008 Labels: Blogs, Marketing Trends 0 comments. Click here to post comments. |
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