Marketing in 2013 is more tech and social media, and fewer whiskey-driven brainstorm sessions
The world of advertising and marketing today has changed since the days of Don Draper and the rest of the “Mad Men”. The ad guys of the sixties would drive their Cadillacs across town to trendy restaurants to suck down martinis while exerting influence on those who mattered. They created slick ads for print magazines and television, and public relations was still the domain of those who could throw the best parties.
Messaging was something you had to have a “feel” for. What worked and what didn’t was really just figured out by chance and instinct, and getting the word out was a costly proposition.
Message Systems’ recent predictions on the future of marketing in 2013 shows just how much the world of marketing has changed. The digital messaging company gauged how marketers are adapting to a newer multi-channel landscape, and what marketing is going to look like in the near future, following results from its “Marketing Channel and Engagement Benchmark Survey” that was performed earlier this year.
From whiskey and cigarettes, to social media
No more booze-soaked lunches for the guys at Sterling Cooper. Today, most outreach isn’t done on a face-to-face basis. According to Message Systems, the top six marketing predictions for 2013 are largely focused on technology with a human touch.
1. More brands will use a broader array of social media channels next year to identify online influencers and engage in two-way communications with customers – with LinkedIn experiencing the fastest overall growth during 2013.
2. Counter to popular opinion, email will remain the most popular and effective direct marketing channel, and still deliver the highest ROI.
3. Marketing and IT decision makers will migrate from outsourcing to insourcing customer service and email marketing with a focus on investing in the in-house, on-premises model during 2013.
4. Retailers will take cues from social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook, and engage with customers on their terms and contact preferences in the coming year.
5. Businesses will consolidate customer data into one holistic view and message to customers more intelligently next year.
6. Marketers will finally make the full leap to the small screen during 2013.
“We think there are two overall trends that are running through the six predictions we have. The two big ones are data integration, and marketers acclimating themselves to the realization that more and more of their customer interactions are going to be happening through the smartphones and tablets,” notes John Pinson, Messaging Systems Senior Manager of Content Marketing. “That’s going to fundamentally change the way customer interactions happen. A lot of what we’ve got in here goes to, how do you keep the conversation going . . . from initial marketing email, through perhaps a conversion to online purchase, and follow-up after that?”
Sometimes marketing is just good customer service
Technology and tech-driven social interaction plays a big role in both. Customer service, and customer relationship management, has taken a back and forth direction over the past several years. Before Content Relationship Management (CRM) systems, CRM was purely human-driven. There was a guy on the phone, with a stack of index cards, and he knew everybody’s first name and where their kids went to school. Then, the industry embraced automation, and the human element was taken out completely.
However, we soon realized that success meant having some of both, and CRM went from full-on automation, to adding back in a human element—and it worked – not because we use less technology in CRM, but because we use more refined technology to allow for that level of automation while still bringing back in that human interaction supported by a strong, data-driven back end. In a way, we put that “feel” back into the mix. Maybe Don Draper would fit into 21st century marketing after all.
“That’s where IM {instant messaging} comes in,” says Pinson. “It’s a key messaging channel for keeping it human. You can do so much with automated email—you can send alerts and notifications, but if I need to ask a question, it should be really easy for me to click to call, or click to IM. That’s where, if the preference of the customer becomes ‘I want a live person’, if you can do something to make that happen easily, it’s going to elevate your customer satisfaction.”
Just send me an email
Message Systems’ prediction #2 will surprise many of the jaded marketers and techies out there, who may incorrectly believe that the time of email as a marketing tool has passed. Do people really read all those marketing emails? Apparently they do. It is still popular and effective. An earlier Direct Marketing Association report predicts that the ROI of email marketing is in decline. “We were fully expecting to hear from our survey respondents that they were experiencing the same kind of thing, but they weren’t,” said Pinson. According to their survey, 75 percent of respondents had seen an increase in email marketing ROI over the last year.
Keeping it in-house
Another surprise in Message Systems’ six predictions is a migration from outsourcing, to insourcing of customer service, with a focus on on-premise models for both customer service and email marketing. An Osterman Research survey had previously reinforced that most decision-makers prefer to keep email marketing in-house, due to the greater control, security, and cost benefit available for the on-premise model. Offshore customer service centers are still ubiquitous, but numerous studies show that in sourcing pays off over time in terms of taking better advantage of customer data that you already have. “When you maintain email marketing inside the organization, you can also leverage more data than your outsourced peers. This shows real improvement of relevance in targeting,” said Pinson. “So you get better lists over time. Even though you take more of an initial outlay, you’re going to see improved results.”
