Planning for Next Year
2013 Strategy: Embrace Cross-Channel Marketing or ‘Big Data’?
If you are seeking new ideas to increase your sales in 2013, look no further than Cross-Channel Marketing, aka CCM. Is cross-channel marketing the next big thing or more of the same? In actuality, CCM incorporates today’s popular media and marketing channels along with established direct marketing practices and cutting edge multi-channel triggers and “back-end” reporting.Meanwhile, if you are also tempted to embrace “big data” as the next big thing in marketing, we advise you to tread carefully. Read how to heat sales without getting burned by today’s hot direct marketing trends.
What’s New
Social Media Is Forecast to Generate Half of All Web Sales
Using data from Gartner Research, Vocus, a marketing software provider, recently put together an upbeat “infographic” outlook for social media advertising — forecasting that social commerce sales will bring in $30 billion a year by 2015, with half of web sales to occur through social media. Vocus supports that general growth by citing Facebook’s ad success story: Facebook already drives 26% of referral traffic to business websites, and 20% of consumers prefer to shop a brand’s Facebook page rather than its website. With one in three businesses using Facebook, and 89% of agencies advertising for business clients on Facebook, social commerce advertising clearly has momentum. Here’s another reason to juice up your social media involvement: Companies that blog see strong gains in lead generation. According to a recent study by Internet marketer HubSpot Inc., companies that blog just once or twice a month generate 70% more leads than those that don’t blog at all. See more social media advertising statistics.
What’s Working
Mobile Ads Are Hot, But Effectiveness Requires Careful Crafting
The mobile advertising space is expanding rapidly, but getting response requires more craft than rough “go mobile” application of online tactics. A recent Bloomberg Businessweek commentary noted that too many marketers simply repurpose their banner and interstitial ads for mobile — and then fail in the small-screen, fast-paced mobile-user experience. A tiny banner has no content to woo response, and pop-ups are annoyingly disruptive. Similarly, new data from Mobile Theory shows that a landing page, the favored sales and tracking device of online marketers, is not the way to win mobile fans. Instead, Mobile Theory CEO Scott Swanson advises an expansion panel — which can contain all your landing page content without forcing the mobile user to wait to launch a new page. Swanson notes that testing shows post-tap response and engagement rates are 10% higher on ads that expand on the device versus those that launch a new page. Read about mobile ad strategies.
Industry Survey
Are you planning to increase your mobile ad budget in 2013? (Choose one) YES NO
Results of previous Industry Survey: Some 53% respondents said they planned to increase direct mail spending in 2013.
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