Productive Knowledge December '07 Client Alert

Internet Will Play Greater Role in 2008 Marketing Strategies

Who's Looking at Your Web Site? And What Are They Seeing?

Overall Marketing Tactics -- The Scorecard

Green -- The Other Big Marketing Trend

 

Internet Will Play Greater Role In 2008 Marketing Strategies

Company web sites and the Internet will play an increasingly important role in sales and marketing in 2008. That will follow the trend of 2007, which saw online advertising spending increase significantly and which saw the rise of new digital avenues for marketing messages.

While online strategies and spending will increase, the traditional basics will remain the No. 1 focus of marketers in the new year, according to respondents to an Anderson Analytics survey of the Marketing Executives Networking Group.

Zenith Optimedia, an international media agency, says a 29 percent increase in Internet advertising budgets in the U.S. this year should be followed by a 19 percent increase in 2008.

Aside from advertising, online marketing strategies will rise in importance in 2008, according to Zenith Optimedia and the Marketing Executives Networking Group.

Search engine marketing efforts will be prominent among those strategies as companies seek to draw more attention to their web sites. Companies will engage a variety of organic and paid methods to make their sites easier to find.

Expect to see more video used to deliver more messages, too. Companies are increasingly using social online venues such as Facebook, My Space and You Tube to deliver marketing messages, along with video clips on their own web sites. We’ll also continue to see more business owners project their authority through blog commentaries in national and local media outlets.

Those same efforts, when coupled with traditional branding efforts and “big idea” marketing, help customers use the “many doors” marketing methods of today’s sophisticated communicators and brand developers.

Finally, we expect more companies to recognize the value of news in their marketing efforts. We’ve seen great results from distributing news releases online this year. Those news releases not only go to targeted media but also directly to individuals who, through a variety of means, sign up to get news on specified topics. To learn more, call Productive Knowledge at 414-940-6555, or e-mail us at info@productiveknowledge.com.

Who’s Looking at Your Web Site? And What are They Seeing?

Does your company web site do a good job supporting your overall business development? It should, considering the importance of web sites in buying decisions. Research by Enquiro Search Solutions shows “a heavy reliance on online research in all aspects of the purchase cycle” in business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets.

In other words, business people and consumers increasingly are reviewing web sites and factoring information from those sites in their buying decisions.

You’ve probably done it yourself. You hear about a product or service, or meet someone at a networking event. What do you do? You go to the company’s web site to learn more and determine whether it’s a company you might want to do business with.

That happens in small and big businesses. Larger companies, in particular, often use search techniques as well as visits to known web sites when they are looking for vendors.

That won’t change in 2008. Enquiro’s 2007 research reinforced its initial survey in 2004, and showed that online sources can now have as much influence in buying decisions as offline sources for business-to-business purchases.

What do prospects find when they visit your web site? Is it a site they can easily navigate to learn what your company has to offer? Does it clearly describe what you sell today – and not what you sold a year or two ago? Does it reflect the business professionalism you want to project? Is your on-line brand in sync with your off-line brand and communicating a message you are comfortable with? Is the “latest news” entry so old that it looks like you’re out of business? Does the site require viewers to click too many times to get to information they want?

Maybe they are not even finding your site because it does not include well-positioned terms or does not say things the way prospects are saying them.

If you’re not satisfied that your web site is working for you, give us a call at 414-617-6597, or contact us via e-mail at info@productiveknowledge.com. Our electronic marketing and Internet audit will help you determine the effectiveness of your online efforts and how they could more powerfully help your business.

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Overall Marketing Tactics - The Scorecard

Marketing techniques may look like an upside down chart when one reviews the latest ROI initiatives based on marketing dollars spent, with e-mail marketing holding a prominent spot, according to a Marketing Sherpa preview of 2008 marketing tactics -- traditional and electronic.

In the top spot is “house e-mail marketing” with a high level of probability that it will return “good ROI.” This tactic has been greatly over-criticized, but done right, it yields good acquisition and retention results.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is listed as second in importance with almost the same ROI as house e-mail marketing. SEO is an inexpensive way to increase exposure of brands to targeted audiences. Even though it has a high “hard-to-gauge” measurement regarding results, its low cost to entry is very appealing to many companies.

“Paid search marketing,” which is third in importance, has a high direct measurable result and hence will continue to grow in importance. The tactic is highly important for many marketers. Google and other search engines will continue to create paid opportunities.

Public relations, which is fourth in ROI measurements in the review, has high “hard-to-gauge measurements” in the results percentage, but continues to be unmistakable in its concrete effects on brands, creating authorities and various other uses. We would argue with the “hard-to-measure” comment, since we have several metrics that, when captured, show concrete and measurable results from electronic PR and traditional tactics.

Direct mail, on-line advertising (banners) and print advertising show up as very “low-value” tactics in this report.

In short if you are not now engaging electronic tactics, now is a good time to discuss those high-value techniques. Call us at 414-940-6555 or contact us via e-mail at info@productiveknowledge.com.

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Green – The Other Big Marketing Trend

As we look outside our office windows we see the white blanket of snow. But the window looking into 2008 shows green — as in environmentalism.

You probably saw and heard a lot about “green” in the last few months. That will only expand in the new year as more companies respond to growing demands by consumers and other businesses for “green” products and services, and for demands that companies have “green” operating practices.

In fact, the Marketing Executives Networking Group survey we referenced above puts “green” as one of the top three 2008 marketing trends. Some of that marketing will be to tout new products and services while other campaigns will be made to highlight existing “green” features.

Still others will “green-up” their company brands and business operations to help in recruitment of young workers, most who now say they are only interested in working for companies that are environmentally conscious. (That was one of the very interesting finds of our 2007 Wisconsin Brain Drain Survey, which involved more than 1,700 college-age students.)

Consumers, while demanding more “green,” will continue to be confused over manufacturers’ claims. They will find clarity in programs like Degree of Green, which Waukesha-based Safe Building Solutions developed with the assistance of Productive Knowledge Inc., and Think B4 You Buy, being developed by Thiensville-based Solterra Studios.

Work on the Degree of Green program was just part of our expanding marketing and public relations work for clients with green products and services. We expect to see more companies responding to the market's growing demand for green products and services. To learn how your company can tap into that expanding market, contact us at 414-940-6555 or info@productiveknowledge.com. Or, check out more information on our green marketing services and green public relations services.

 

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