2010 Marketing - Why Will Interactive Media Trump Traditional Marketing Efforts? Part 1 of 2

Are you aware of the marketing trends for 2010 and beyond? Awareness of these trends will position you to define a marketing strategy that is profitable for your business.

I base the facts provided from Forrester Research who conducted a survey of 204 marketing executives across multiple industries for US Interactive Marketing Forecast - 2010-2014 report.
Visit Forrester Research at: www.forrester.com to access this report and beyond as they have a wealth of information.

Bottom line: Interactive Media will Trump Traditional Marketing Efforts

To ensure that everyone is on the same page, Interactive media is defined as collaborative media that allows interaction between participants. Applications that support this fall in the social media arena with Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn to name just a few examples.

Part 1 - Why is this shift occurring?

1. Economy - while there have been many negative views of the economy, on a positive note this has forced marketing organizations to re-evaluate how they do business and to find better ways to market effectively. With the buzz of social media, marketers are finding interactive tools to be more effective than traditional tools. The reason for this, I believe is due to the influential approach the social media applications foster. As an example, Qdoba used social media, in this case, Twitter to give followers a buy one get one free option all the while Qdoba was able to promote a new menu item. There was no money spent on 30 second commercials, newspaper ads etc., rather they used the power of influence to passively persuade customers to visit their location and try their new menu item. This also supports interactive tools as being more cost effective, timely and measurable.

2. Customer Relationships - customers are demanding more especially around having an interactive and custom brand experience. An example of this includes Comcast, who leveraged Twitter to create Comcast Cares, whereby customers could tweet about their current issues and have it addressed promptly by a Comcast representative. This was a new step to enhance customer satisfaction and provide customers with the quick and interactive response they were looking for.

3. Strategic Marketing Organizations - given the turn in economy there has been more scrutiny requiring further accountability to marketing organizations to show the Return on Investment (ROI) and contribution to profit margin. Marketing organizations need to leverage the interactive tools and beyond to reach customers in effective and interactive ways to support brand and increase revenue.

4. Printed Materials - customers reading magazines or newspapers has dropped 17% to 6% since 2004 according to Forrester Research. As publishing giants re-think their approach so should marketing organizations that rely on printed materials and advertisement. Leveraging Interactive Tools and implementing a Social Media Marketing Campaign is a smart alternative.

Part 2: Interactive Media Tools Growth, Traditional Marketing Declines