Marketing Governance

Most brands continue to struggle with social media. In large part its because they approach social media as a new advertising channel for messages. In todays reality, everyone has a voice, and brand advocates and evangelists often speak louder than brands themselves.

We know building a social presence alone is not enough. But can companies listen and engage their brands well enough to develop successful word of mouth and cultivate an engaged community?

The Social Context is discussed by Author Seth Godin, White House Director of Social Innovation Michael Smith, Penton Media VP George Assimakopoulos, IEEE President Karen Bartleson, Author Jason Falls, Edelman Chicago Managing Director David Armano, MSLGROUP Global Director of Social Media Stephanie Agresta and Author Geoff Livingston.

 TDC) has released the results of its pan-European marketing study, “The Data Driven Marketing Survey 2013, Europe”. The study reveals that a shift to digital channels and the increasing importance of data have led to a “class structure” in marketing technology investments among companies using these solutions. Telco and IT companies invest almost 20% of their marketing budget on improving their marketing infrastructure, whilst retail (17%) and finance (13%) are close followers. Overall, however, 50% of marketing departments across all industries surveyed spend less than 5% to improve their marketing with technology investments.

In creating the report, Teradata eCircle surveyed more than 1,100 marketing professionals ranging from CMOs and key decision makers to marketing managers and technology users, from 19 European countries and across nine major industries, to uncover the challenges and trends in data-driven marketing adoption by European businesses and how marketers use technology to master them.

The study shows that despite the current, uncertain economic climate, the shift to digital is significant. Marketers still plan to increase their spending in digital channels, especially in social media (79%), mobile marketing (79%) and online display advertising (70%) within the next 12 months. What’s more, the first seven channels marketers plan to invest in are digital, with call centers being the first non-digital investment priority in 8th place.

The research also highlighted marketers’ desire to embrace data, citing it as a key driver of marketing success, with data-driven marketers more than twice as satisfied with their marketing programs than their counterparts who are not basing their decisions on data.

With two-thirds of marketers claiming a lack of simple metrics and the short-term view of their marketing departments as their biggest obstacles to success, the findings provide an eye-opening insight into the struggles facing the modern multi-channel marketer. In fact, the single biggest challenge facing marketers in 2013 was revealed to be the pressure to increase revenue.

Out of the more than 50% of marketers utilizing seven or more channels, the research also found that only 33% currently have Campaign Management technology to monitor their activity, whilst a mere 17% use a Marketing Resource Management solution. Notably only 10% use both.

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Big data, smart data, little data. Data is everywhere; it powers our daily lives. As consumer media consumption continues to shift digitally, marketers are faced with a new set of challenges in reaching their audiences with the right message, at the right time, and through the right channels. Marketers ability to collect and analyze data big, small, social and otherwise is needed to help create great customer experiences. This discussion will take a look at the ways marketing is adapting across people, platforms, processes, screens, and channels because of this surge of available data.

Doremus optimism is rising among global executives around the world.

Across four key metrics—global economic conditions, local economic conditions, industry economic conditions, and corporate outlook—more senior-level executives project improvements over the next six months vs. the same period a year earlier some 41 percent are expecting global economic conditions to improve over the next six months, up from the 25% who did so a year earlier.  No more then 52 percent expect improvements in their own businesses over the next six months, up from the 39% who did so in 2011.

The outlook differs by geography: North Americans were the most optimistic overall, particularly about economic conditions locally and within their own industries. By contrast, Europeans were the most pessimistic, particularly regarding local economic conditions.

For the first time in nine years, senior execs ranked improving market share/competitive position (47%) as their top goal for the year. That shift pushed cost cutting into the No. 2 spot (43%), while developing/marketing new products/services (39%) ranked No. 3

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The modern technology, and especially digital technology like e-mail, websites, mobile and social media, are a blessing for marketers. Not ever before were they able to gather so much data on what they do. But, this also comes with a danger. The flood of data is large, marketers are awash in data. Marketing analytics is the way to take control over this flood. In the 2013 Marketing Analytics Benchmark Report MarketingSherpa the importance of marketing analytics is addressed.

Over 1.100 marketers are surveyed for this research. It provides insight into analytics for all kinds of marketing channels.

According to Marketingssherpa the surveyed marketers provided some interesting insights, and also highlighted areas where marketers could improve in taking advantage of this valuable marketing asset.

The availability of marketing analytics data is promising with 79% reporting having average, significant and even vast amounts of client interaction data to analyze. Only 3% reported having no analytics data at all. An overwhelming majority — 97% — of marketers have some amount of marketing analytics data to work with.

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Over the last year we have seen some initiatives on Augmented Reality (AR) applied to marketing collateral and editorial content. But now AUDI is launching an AR campaign to promote the R8 supercar.

AR is recognition technology that allows a person to see additional content such as a video, 3D imaging or web editorial when scanning a symbols on a printed media. So you think here we go again. Another piece of technology which is difficult to incorporate in daily marketing processes, another investment needed from your superiors with no real arguments, another nifty gadget with its true potential unknown.

But AR is different. For years we have been focussed on creating multichannel campaigns, aligning collateral production workflows and creating channel agnostic content. AR now brings it all together. We can use this technology to engage our customer and we can now track the use of mass media like its direct media. We can expect marketers to struggle with the application of AR and the integration into the marketing processes. But we will offer our customers a great 21^st century experience and in that process become 21^st century marketers.

Watch the movie at Audis UK Facebookpage

New Media Forecasts report, ZenithOptimedia found that the leading country in 2012 terms of new media adoption was Norway, with an average penetration rate of 38.8% across three key digital technologies – smartphones, tablets and IPTV.

It was followed by France on 35.7%, the Netherlands on 35.1%, Sweden on 31.3% and Denmark on 31.2%. However, balance will shift a little towards 2015. ZenithOptimedia expects the Netherlands to be on top in 2015 with a penetration of 65.1%, followed by France 60.8% and Ireland 50.2%.

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Instagram is more than a place for hipsters to share pictures of their latest lunch order. In fact, its a full-on business opportunity. Since its launch in 2010, the community has accumulated over 50 million members. Its the perfect platform to engage potential customers and to build up a personal relationship with consumers. This quick guide to Instagram for marketers shows you how to best present a company on the site. Just remember the golden rules: curate, snap, hastag, engage, repeat. .

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