Latest Marketing Trends
Marketing trends as we move into 2012 according to Forbes, and what we’re seeing to be true:
1) Value Is the Deal
Differentiated and believable brand meaning – emotional, rational, functional, and experiential – becomes a more effective and profitable surrogate for value than low-lower-lowest pricing strategies. But only the consumer gets to say how “valuable” is actually defined. Employ effective systems to listen to them and then figure out ways to tune in the consumer’s frequency.
2) Social Network Security
Friends have an even greater influence on purchase habits than before, but the trust in the community outside the brand space will only be extended to the brand if truly understood and properly incorporated into brand outreach strategies. More connected consumers won’t call, text, or email, but will use social network streams to talk about brands, create personalized content, and increase brand engagement – all necessitating a deeper understanding of what drives a brand’s category and how social network platforms play their part. But watch for more powerful peer-to-peer recommendations coming in the form of subject and feedback blogs – more targeted, more trusted, and more motivating than advertising, promotions, sponsorships, or celebrity endorsements.
3) Inward Bound
Differentiation will increasingly come from a brand’s emotional offerings and finding what will best resonate with consumers. Doing what others do signals commodity, not brand. This is one suit that needs to be custom made. Personal connection and engagement will be more and more critical especially in today’s weakened economy.
4) Great Expectations
Brands aren’t able to keep up with consumer expectations and haven’t for a while now. Every day consumers adopt and devour the latest and greatest, hungering for cutting-edge innovations and enhanced experiences. Accurate measures of real category expectations can provide both ‘roadmaps’ and significant advantages for brands that understand their value.
5) Now Entering the Statusphere
Status remains with us, but the definition continues its shift. The curtain has been pulled back on labels without meaning. Increasingly, meaning is defined far deeper than simple ownership and ubiquitous logos. Producing, selling, and shopping based on environmentally “green” production and design, and fair-trade and socially conscious consumption is the trend for brands and consumers. To discover their best tactics here, a brand will need to investigate the components of important category drivers. Spot them. Understand them. Leverage them.
6) Appvertising
As a result of growing smartphone/tablet ubiquity, look for more and more apps and their effective use to create an interactive nexus to increase consumer engagement and brand differentiation. It’s not just about games anymore.
The future may not be what it used to be, but on Thursday we’ll reveal the final six trends for 2012. We can tell you now that marketers that have loyalty and engagement metrics in place will have a handle on the trends that are going to show up in their offices. And in 2012 that’s more important than ever because to be prepared is always half the victory.
Griffin’s Tried & True Marketing Tips
DON’T
- Discount (okay if it’s used as a trial device)
- Delegate (don’t just pass it off to a secretary to do and hope it turns out okay)
- Try to be all things to all people (Be a specialist. People are willing to pay more for specialists
- Use too much copy. Trying to say it all in one ad. Try to get it down to one 9-word thought.
DO include in all ads and marketing materials:
- Awareness about you and your firm
- A main idea
- A decision they need to make
- A call to action
Marketing a Professional Services Firm
Marketing a professional service firm requires different strategies and tactics than marketing a product. When looking back at the source of new business, most service firms will find that approximately 85 percent of their new business is generated from referrals. Those referrals will largely come from existing clients as well as business contacts and other professionals.
What this means to you is that the majority of your marketing effort should be placed on relationship building – both with existing clients and those people that are in a position to refer work to your firm. You’ll need to put some effort into other marketing/business development activities as well. And with a systematic, scheduled approach to marketing, you’ll keep the pipeline full with new prospects.
The Power of Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is a relatively new term, meaning that an idea, product or service gets spread, like a virus – without or with little effort. Like a flu or a cold, it keeps spreading. It is the ultimate in word of mouth advertising – although in today’s world, it’s more likely to be word of email or text message than word of mouth.
With the advent of the internet and email, its possible and probable to spread the word on a new service around the world in literally days. The possibilities are limitless for utilizing the internet to spread the word of a company’s services and products.
Other effective means of viral marketing include public relations (creating a media buzz), special events, direct marketing.
Email Marketing is HOT!
E-mail marketing done correctly can create customer loyalty, referrals and increase sales. The key is to do it correctly, so that you’re not spamming people or over e-mailing and creating unhappy customers.
E-mail marketing allows the advertiser to do several things that traditional direct marketing won’t. For instance, some e-mail marketing software will update the users’ database automatically. If a message is forwarded to friend then that friend’s e-mail address is automatically entered into the database. Additionally, if an e-mail address is incorrect then the software will automatically make that address inactive.
Another benefit of e-mail marketing is the cost. Thousands of e-mails can be sent out for less than half the cost to mail out 1,000 direct mail pieces and there are no additional printing and handling costs.
The Power of Social Media
Unless you’re living under a rock, you’re inundated every day with Twitter, Facebook & Google Ad Word requests. And if you’re in the Over 50 crowd, you probably think you’re too old for Social Media. Think Again.
These statistics may shock you:
- Facebook added 100 million viewers in less than nine months
- If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth largest
- The fastest growing segment on Facebook is women 55 to 65
- There are over 200,000,000 blogs
- 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
- Only 14% trust advertising
- We no longer search for the news, the news finds us
Watch this You Tube video to continue being shocked.
Marketing Tips
Creativity and strategy are the defining factors in succesful marketing programs.
Our engagements usually begin with a one-day Strategic Marketing Planning Session held for the management team. In this session, we identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; outline the key marketing objectives to be achieved; create strategies and then design the action plans to fulfill the objectives.
