I just went to an on-line marketing seminar and most of the day was spent absorbing new vocabulary. What it all boiled down to is there are more ways to reach out to customers and it is more measurable. All great things when you are in marketing. In addition, I picked up some valuable nuggets of information:
1) 29% of our time is spent on line however only 8% of most marketing budgets are spent toward on-line marketing initiatives. (Something to ponder, or at least have my clients ponder)
2) 37% of our time is spent consuming TV and 35% of most marketing budgets are spent on TV marketing efforts. (Not very logical but hey, Super Bowl commercials are expensive)
3) One billion people are using social media on a daily basis. (Can you say Tweet!)
4) 93% of people trust product reviews from people they have never met. (We can find our future mate on line, so why not trust a stranger's opinion on products?)
5) Of over 250 million mobile phone users, 90% can accept a text message. (Hopefully not while driving.)
One fact kept bubbling to the surface; the selling process is changing rapidly. It is more important for a marketer to know the buying process, or as Steven Woods coined the phrase the "Digital Body Language", of your customer. Companies have the capability of knowing who is looking at their site, what they are looking at and when. Emails can be targeted more effectively and sellers can close a deal more often. This is great, but it kind of reminds me of trying on clothes while a really annoying sales person hovers outside the dressing room to see if I need another size or color. We may run the risk of over saturating the customer with email, facebook pages, mobile texts and tweets.
So who is in the driver seat now? Can the customer tune you out while he gathers reviews from bloggers and other strangers and makes up his own mind? Or can he be cyber stalked and convinced to purchase when the time is right? I think it is up to the marketers to strike a balance of all the on-line marketing tools. Not all of them are right for every product. (I mean really, does Charmin Toilet Paper need a Facebook page?)
But here was the final bit of information I picked up: When creating a micro site, use different key words from the corporate site so it doesn't erode the traffic to the corporate site. (Duh. But I never thought of that.)
Patty Jensen
1) 29% of our time is spent on line however only 8% of most marketing budgets are spent toward on-line marketing initiatives. (Something to ponder, or at least have my clients ponder)
2) 37% of our time is spent consuming TV and 35% of most marketing budgets are spent on TV marketing efforts. (Not very logical but hey, Super Bowl commercials are expensive)
3) One billion people are using social media on a daily basis. (Can you say Tweet!)
4) 93% of people trust product reviews from people they have never met. (We can find our future mate on line, so why not trust a stranger's opinion on products?)
5) Of over 250 million mobile phone users, 90% can accept a text message. (Hopefully not while driving.)
One fact kept bubbling to the surface; the selling process is changing rapidly. It is more important for a marketer to know the buying process, or as Steven Woods coined the phrase the "Digital Body Language", of your customer. Companies have the capability of knowing who is looking at their site, what they are looking at and when. Emails can be targeted more effectively and sellers can close a deal more often. This is great, but it kind of reminds me of trying on clothes while a really annoying sales person hovers outside the dressing room to see if I need another size or color. We may run the risk of over saturating the customer with email, facebook pages, mobile texts and tweets.
So who is in the driver seat now? Can the customer tune you out while he gathers reviews from bloggers and other strangers and makes up his own mind? Or can he be cyber stalked and convinced to purchase when the time is right? I think it is up to the marketers to strike a balance of all the on-line marketing tools. Not all of them are right for every product. (I mean really, does Charmin Toilet Paper need a Facebook page?)
But here was the final bit of information I picked up: When creating a micro site, use different key words from the corporate site so it doesn't erode the traffic to the corporate site. (Duh. But I never thought of that.)
Patty Jensen
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