Tuesday, September 25, 2012

The Future Of Marketing …. The Basics Stay The Same




As marketers, we are utilizing online & digital advertising/marketing more than ever before — and it’s great!  It’s easy, however, for businesses to get too caught up in the digital world and forget the basics of marketing: to be where your customers are.
While it is important to have an online presence, a key aspect of our job as advertising professionals is to keep our clients focused on the use of an integrated marketing mix — because, let’s face it, our customers don’t live online. The use of both traditional and social media is the key to a successful campaign.
An example of an integrated marketing mix may include the use of television and radio advertising supported by print and online ads, public relations, and social media.  While radio and television ads will reference your website and social media involvement, anything online will link to each other, providing your customers with a real sense of who you are and the benefits of your product or service.
Speaking of traditional advertising, there really is nothing traditional about TV advertising these days. Many consumers now watch commercials on YouTube, while others buzz through them on their DVR. The ads that are really making a comeback and are the future of advertising are the product placements, the sponsorship ads, and the 2-4 minute ads that truly entertain while delivering a soft sell.
Whether you are advertising in the yellow pages, the local paper, or on your local radio, all media now has online advertising to complement your traditional advertising. So, while speaking with your media representative, ask about any PR or online advertising opportunities that can work hand-in-hand with your traditional media buy.
As we look to the future, some still feel that social media is just a fad. We don’t agree. Will things change? Of course! They always do. The scales of social media have tipped strongly to high usage. It’s only normal that they will tip back and forth for a while. But social media is here to stay.
Mobile technology also provides unique opportunities for advertising. When you download an app, you are asked if you would like to allow push notifications. More often than not, we enable this because after all, what would happen if we missed the latest comment on our Facebook status? Ever been lost and pulled up your map app to find local businesses are labeled right on your map? These “conveniences” are new ways to market your business. If you are not taking advantage of them, your competitor has the advantage.  
McDonald’s is already utilizing social media to push notifications to users based upon their location and their preferences. It’s only a matter of time before others jump on the bandwagon and even more innovative uses of social media will be found.
As social media and mobile technology advance, it won’t be long before a “typical” ad campaign may look more like this:
Television advertising including product usage and placement, radio ads with sponsorship community service tie-ins, online advertising and public relations through your traditional media sources, social media specific to your target market, mobile apps with push notifications, and geo-based mobile advertising.
Gone are the days of going home to watch some TV at the end of the day.  Consumers are now utilizing 2-5 devices at once now — television screens, computer screens, tablets, smart phones …. The list goes on.
Have two minutes to kill in the middle of the day? There’s an app for that!
If you don’t believe us, just ask Siri.

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