Welcome back to the third and final installment (part one and part two) of The Future of Marketing series. I believe the greatest marketing challenge (and opportunity) for the future is mastering “channel strategy.” What’s channel strategy? It’s the strategic deployment of a marketing budget into media channels that will most effectively attract the largest number of customers.
Today’s marketing options can seem innumerable and the number of choices in the future will only increase. Marketers have to choose not only which channel to utilize, but how much to invest in each channel to achieve success. The diagram below shows an example of some of the choices available to attract customers today:
Looking at this diagram reminds me of playing darts. Darts may be a more effective method of allocating budgets because multi-channel measurement is still in its infancy. Even when we have data from all the individual channels, we still don’t know how the combined formula impacts the bottom line. It’s alchemy and it can blow up!
According to an InfoTrends study on Multi-Channel Communications Measurement and Benchmarking, multi-channel campaigns using email, customized landing pages and print yielded a 35% higher response rate than print-only campaigns.
Multi-channel campaigns are simply more effective. How can we know the efficiency of each individual channel and what the ratio of investment should be in each? Investment in one channel naturally takes money away from other channels so every decision either approaches or detracts from the optimal formula.
Currently there is no standard CPM to measure channel mix, although several companies have proprietary solutions that attempt to attribute cross-channel results. Companies like Alterian, Radian6, Nielsen Business Media and Mobilestorm are a few. These software solutions are a great step toward ROI transparency, and their sophistication will improve as time advances.
Most companies aren’t aware or can’t afford these software solutions so Marketers need a disciplined planning process with clear steps to help you increase your chance of success. To be clear, let’s revisit Jessica, our 25-year-old professional working in the year 2020. We’ll use a day in her life to explain how you might make better channel marketing decisions for your business.
Here’s how to evaluate the right channel strategy:
6:20 A.M. – After snoozing through one alarm, Jessica grabs her Cloud Acquisition Device (CAD) and drops it in the cradle in the bathroom where she’ll listen to news, weather and sports while she gets ready for work
Step 1. Segment your audience according to profitability. Understand the financial impact of adding X percent of new customers within each segment. Jessica is a high-end digital consumer who buys the maximum data plans to support her voracious information-access needs. Analyzing your customer segments will help you focus on the channels that will deliver the highest ROI. If you don’t fully understand your target segments, drop everything you’re doing and get this data. It will change everything you do. When I worked at Ameritech Cellular, we knew 15% of our customers delivered 80% of the company profit. While it was tempting to put the majority of our budget and resources into the retail consumer promotions (only 20% of the profits), that decision would have had terrible financial consequences. Instead, we invested in high-end business packages that sold our best customers more services, driving up EBIDA.
There are several businesses today that tier their content offerings, charging consumers for content that’s free of ads. Check out Pandora and Uber Twitter. We’ll see more of this as everyday, basic content changes as time progresses, so start organizing your product or service offerings now.
Step 2. Make sure your data supports threshold levels of investment based on your targets use of that channel before you add that particular channel into the mix. “Innovation” (otherwise known as cutting edge media with no proven performance) should be kept below 10% of the budget.
7:15 A.M. – Jessica grabs her CAD from her bedroom CAP and brings it into the kitchen where it wirelessly connects to the Cloud Acquisition Portal (CAP). Her mother calls her to remind her about her father’s upcoming birthday, and the CAD seamlessly transitions between news and the video chat session with her mother. Since all video is now web-enabled, Jessica will use the top online gift store to search a variety of gift options for her Dad. More about this when Jessica comes home tonight.
Each channel will be much more segmented, persuasive and effective. B2B channels will even be fully integrated with search engine optimization (SEO), video, email, promotions, ads (banner and PPC), mobile, print, direct, PoP and social. Support for this trend can be found in the study by EConsultancy.
7:45 A.M. – Jessica jumps into her electric car and drives to work. Electric cars, and all the cottage industries that support them, will grow exponentially in the next decade. Popularity will increase electric car market penetration to 50% by 2020.
9:30 A.M. – While doing research for a 10:00 A.M. client meeting, Jessica reads a news update regarding one of her supplier’s new contracts. She clicks on a link and receives an un-branded case study that can be used in any presentation. Packaging case studies for viral distribution, with links back to the source, will become a rich source of lead generation in the future.
Noon – On her lunch break, Jessica scrolls through mobile ads she’s cached for future use. She’s opted into certain ads so she can save money on the things she likes. The cache app allows her to save ads she wants to save and retrieve when she is near the store.
2:30 P.M. Throughout the day, Jessica receives alerts about a variety of information according to her pre-approved preferences. These alerts represent highly targeted opportunities to reach consumers.
5:30 P.M. - A good friend calls Jessica and invites her to a business association meet-up that night where business celebrities talk live and interact with attendees from far-off locations – using sophisticated streaming technology. Branding and social media opportunities abound.
8:00 P.M. - Once home, Jessica plugs in her CAD and selects from a list of high quality resources that will deliver relevant news, cases and data to her business account in the morning. This information will make her more informed and articulate when the discussions and debates occur throughout her business day. If content is King, Jessica will have a crown by noon.
The only way to ensure you’re maximizing your marketing investment, knowing that it isn’t perfect, is to measure every channel. Start with individual measurement tools and add software that integrates channel metrics. Analyze the data and you’ll find valuable insights that will grow your business – guaranteed. Too often we shrug our shoulders and believe its too complicated and there aren’t accurate resources to measure effectively. This attitude leads to complacency and sloth. It’s possible today to dramatically increase your marketing ROI. Get granular and you’ll make a mountain out of a molehill.
I hope you’ve been motivated by this series and make the effort to rise above the standards of this day to lead the future of marketing. I looked ten years into the future but I believe we don’t have to wait to achieve the kind of effectiveness that technology and strategy will surely bring. I’m excited about the future and can’t wait to see what YOU will contribute.
About The B2Bblogger: Dan co-founded the Chicago public relations and search engine optimization firm, Vivid Ascent, to change the definition of integrated marketing. By placing Internet behavior at the center of how people buy, public relations, advertising, website design and social media become much more powerful.
Prior to Vivid Ascent Dan was the Global Director of Advertising for Accenture. He spent the first twelve years of his career at J. Walter Thompson and was President of the International Advertising Association (IAA) Chicago Chapter for five years. You can read more from Dan at Vivid Ascent’s PR, social media and SEO blog or follow him on Twitter @danielmobrien.
Welcome back to the future. In my part one of The Future Marketing series, I challenged you to see if you can survive the future of marketing. It won’t be “futuristic”, but it will be very different from the traditional methods used now.
In my last post I introduced you to Jessica, a 25-year-old professional working in the year 2020 who showed us how technology innovations will change marketing. In this post, I’m going to focus more on the marketing opportunities that complement the technology of the future, so we can see how channel marketing strategies will change. And how you’ll need to change to succeed.
Marketing opportunities will not change radically in ten years, but we will see new “layers”, or segmented, highly targeted opportunities join the mix. As technology enables convenience, marketers will simply have more choices. And these choices will increase the degree of sophistication required to optimize current and future marketing plans.
This foray into the near future is designed to help us better appreciate how to make strategic marketing decisions today. I also hope it will encourage you and surprise you in a way that fosters ideas about how you might increase your marketing effectiveness.
So let’s join Jessica again in the year 2020 as she starts her day:
6:20 A.M. – After snoozing through one alarm, Jessica grabs her Cloud Acquisition Device (CAD) and drops it into the cradle in the bathroom where she’ll listen to news, weather and sports while she gets ready for work. The CAD is her filter, pulling pre-set preferences for information that is tailored to Jessica. She’s also listening to and sometimes watching commercials because like most people, Jessica is willing to watch commercials in order to receive free content. There’s strong evidence that advertising as we know it will thrive in the future. A recent survey by Devicescape showed 68% of people are “OK viewing advertisements” if it means they don’t have to pay for the content: http://bit.ly/bT6lVU. Access the research here http://bit.ly/c4jPTk.
There are several businesses today that tier their content offerings, charging consumers for content that’s free of ads. Check out Pandora and Uber Twitter: http://bit.ly/cyC8fa (Pandora). http://bit.ly/bexZT2 (uber twitter). We’ll see a lot more of this with everyday, basic content as time progresses, so start organizing your product or service offerings now.
7:15 A.M. – Jessica grabs her CAD from her bedroom CAP and brings it into the kitchen where it wirelessly connects to the Cloud Acquisition Portal (CAP). Her mother calls her to remind her about her father’s upcoming birthday, and the CAD seamlessly transitions between news and the video chat session with her mother. Since all video is now web-enabled, Jessica will use the top online gift store to search a variety of gift options for her Dad. More about this when Jessica comes home tonight.
Online ads will be much more segmented, persuasive and entertaining. Interactive TV will be fully integrated so whatever we watch, the internet will be completely accessible. Take a look at this this ad from Coincident TV (CTV). It’s not a video or a website. It’s both! http://bit.ly/95PqHv. Ads will also be available via highly segmented channels so people can search ads to help refine their purchase choices. This won’t eliminate mass market advertising. It will simply provide a new, convenient means to enhance our purchase experience. Advertisers will also have better opportunities to buy ads in programs that are more targeted. As people accept and watch ads in programs to avoid paying to watch, segmentation opportunities will flourish. http://bit.ly/auJEQz
7:45 A.M. – Jessica jumps into her electric car and drives to work. Electric cars, and all the cottage industries that support them, will grow exponentially in the next decade. Popularity will increase electric car market penetration to 50% by 2020. Major, mass market product launches are happening this year: http://nyti.ms/9H2ffm.
8:15 A.M. - As she enters her office building, the international coffee chain using location-based services reminds her that she has 12 credits left. This is the only audio advertising reminder she has enabled Monday-Friday. Tailored location-based advertising will increase as consumers have more control over opt-in services. This doesn’t negate mass market ads because it will add a more personal and relevant layer of selling opportunities into the marketing mix. Check out how Shopalerts is doing it today: http://tcrn.ch/bP42ff.
9:30 A.M. – While doing research for a 10:00 A.M. client meeting, Jessica discovers the most recent and relevant contextual data available for her client’s products. Her options are organized by news articles, research, business strategies, trademarks and legal issues, competitive products, pricing and customer insight. Search results are no longer organized by “video, images, blogs, books and discussions” because these options exist within each result. Each option is organized chronologically, with search variable control.
Noon – On her lunch break, Jessica scrolls through mobile ads she’s cached for future use. She’s opted into certain ads so she can save money on the things she likes. The cache app allows her to save ads she wants to save and retrieve when she is near the store. Mobile, location-based marketing will improve targeting for marketers and convenience for consumers: http://bit.ly/blNt2B
At the restaurant, Jessica grabs an impromptu candy bar at the counter because the restaurant sent her a text offer to add dessert and get 10% off. Several advertisers are currently using these tactics, which will become more ubiquitous in time: http://bit.ly/9cfaHU
2:30 P.M. Throughout the day, Jessica receives alerts about a variety of information according to her pre-approved preferences. These alerts represent highly targeted opportunities to reach consumers.
5:30 P.M. - A good friend calls Jessica and invites her to a social meet-up that night where live auditions are being broadcast for a popular reality TV show. Live video venues will several marketing opportunities that include print, banner, video, location-based services and promotions. Venues that attract large crowds will only increase in value as marketing tools.
6:30 P.M. - Jessica uses her CAD to buy admission and dinner while at the event.
8:00 P.M. - Once home, Jessica plugs in her CAD and settles down at the portable screen on her coffee table. Reclining on the couch, she enables her online persona, which accesses her profile that was previously created, including likes and dislikes for every category relevant to her. She accesses her personal assistant and shops for her Dad’s birthday present. It’s become much more acceptable to send gift texts with purchase codes that the person receiving the gift can use to buy their own gift. It’s easy and the gift-quality and relevance improves. See how giiv is delivering this service today: http://www.giiv.com/. Jessica’s search results offer a plethora of gift ideas for her father, easily purchased without any concerns about identity theft or creeps hacking her real identity. When public personas are required, avatars will represent us in profiles that keep us secure. See how Renkoo, mEgo, Zoolit and other companies are leading the way:http://bit.ly/btlihX. You need to adopt this personalized experience into your marketing plans if you have any hope of surviving the future.
11 P.M. - Once in bed, Jessica voice-enables her alarm and reads from her wireless reader, which drifts to sleep-mode after Jessica.
Most interesting is that all the technologies and opportunities discussed in this post are available today. In ten years, they’ll be common. Will you be a leader or a lagger? If you begin to experiment today with some of these new channels, you’ll not only succeed, but you’ll also be part of the next generation of marketing innovations.
About The B2Bblogger: Dan co-founded the Chicago public relations and search engine optimization firm, Vivid Ascent, to change the definition of integrated marketing. By placing Internet behavior at the center of how people buy, public relations, advertising, website design and social media become much more powerful.
Prior to Vivid Ascent Dan was the Global Director of Advertising for Accenture. He spent the first twelve years of his career at J. Walter Thompson and was President of the International Advertising Association (IAA) Chicago Chapter for five years. You can read more from Dan at Vivid Ascent’s PR, social media and SEO blog or follow him on Twitter @danielmobrien.
It’s easy to be impressed by new smart phones, touch screen displays and other technologies that seem to appear out of nowhere. But there’s always evidence right in front of us that reveals what our lives might be like in the future if we only pay attention. These changes have, and will have profound effects on marketing.
Individually they can be viewed as breakthroughs, but they complicate marketer’s ability to achieve ROI. Why? Innovations don’t integrate well with established technologies.
We’ve all professed our sophisticated integration, but the reality is we live in a disaggregated and inefficient marketing world. Lack of integration isn’t all our faults. As a culture, we suffer from a lack of platform integration. Despite the fact that consumers overlap their media, various media platforms aren’t connected, especially in a manner that would allow measurement. But that will all change.
In this three-part series I will investigate the future of marketing from the customer experience (today’s post), the marketer and then the implications on channel mix today and for the future.
So let’s take a peek into what our business and social lives might be like in ten years from the customer’s perspective. I’ll paint a picture of our future in an attempt to encourage you, and possibly give you ideas that will help us all realize this future sooner. I won’t predict flying cars and surrogate beings, but rather, a more probable future based on research and technology trends from today.
Lets look at our world ten years from now, in April 2020, through the eyes of Jessica (the most popular baby girl’s name in the U.S. in 1995).
She is a 25-year-old professional woman, and this is a perspective on what her typical workday might be like:
6:00 A.M. – Jessica’s Cloud Acquisition Device (CAD) wakes her up with her favorite songs or sounds. The Cad is cradled on her nightstand in one of many Cloud Acquisition Ports (CAP) located throughout her apartment. Jessica voice-enables the 10-minute snooze and drifts back to sleep.
6:10 A.M. – The sweet sounds of encouragement wake her up again, and after 15 seconds shifts to a voice-calendar reminder of her day’s schedule. Jessica’s cloud is tailored to her life, with calendar, personal and work database, music, television programs, movies, internet, social networks and more – all contextually delivered and selected to improve her efficiency and happiness.
6:20 A.M. - Jessica grabs her CAD and plugs it into the port next to her bathroom sink where it displays world and local news, financial market activity and weather on a video screen. Jessica catches up on news while she gets ready for her day.
TV’s will become intelligent video portals for streaming content: http://bit.ly/dAfSzw
7:15 A.M. – Jessica grabs her CAD from her bedroom CAP and brings it into the kitchen where it wirelessly connects to the CAP. Her mother calls her to remind her about her father’s upcoming birthday, and the CAD seamlessly transitions between news and the video chat session with her mother. After the call, Jessica voice-enables her calendar and adds her father’s birthday and a reminder to shop for his gift when she gets home tonight. The CAD is charged wirelessly, eliminating the need for cords.
7:45 A.M. – Jessica attaches her non-invasive, audio/microphone button behind her ear (over the external acoustic meatus bone which transmits sound without ear damage). Then she is out the door and into her electric car. Her CAD delivers music and podcasts to her ear button, which is legal while driving because it doesn’t block external noise. Her CAD still seamlessly integrates with her car’s audio and navigation device, and verbal commands direct her music, traffic reports synched to her destination, news, internet search or phone call options while also providing audio navigation (if necessary).
8:10 – As Jessica parks in her building, her CAD synchs with her monthly parking status (paid) to open the gate.
8:15 A.M. - As she enters her office building, the international coffee chain using location-based services reminds her that she has 12 credits left. This is the only audio advertising reminder she has enabled Monday-Friday. Once in her office, Jessica plugs her CAD into the CAP, which recognizes her location and delivers her business desktop through a CAP screen. She removes her ear button because the audio and microphone wireless systems in her office are highly focused and efficient.
9:30 A.M. – While doing research for a 10:00 A.M. client meeting, Jessica discovers the most recent and relevant contextual data available for her client’s products. Her options are organized by news articles, research, business strategies, trademarks and legal issues, competitive products, pricing and customer insight. Search results are no longer organized by “video, images, blogs, books and discussions” because these options exist within each result. Each option is organized chronologically, with search variable control.
Noon – Anticipating a lunch break at 12:30, Jessica voice-enables her food option network and chooses a Thai salad from the salad restaurant around the corner from her building. The salad is purchased with her CAD-enabled, password protected bank account, and the salad is ready to be picked up at 12:30. She dons her ear button and leaves the office.
At the restaurant, Jessica grabs an impromptu candy bar at the counter and pays by swiping her CAD. All of a sudden Jessica remembers she needs a birthday card for a co-worker, but doesn’t know where a card shop is located near her building. She voice- enables a search for “birthday card shop” and audio directions for a pedestrian are delivered. Once the card is purchased using her CAD, Jessica returns to the office to work while she eats her salad (some things never change). All her social networks are integrated into a single user interface allowing her to stay in touch during her day without spending too much time on it.
2:30 P.M. - A client meeting begins and Jessica uses her CAD as the lead device for the team. It plugs into the CAP in a conference room and establishes audio and videoconference connections to eight locations via the invites in the calendar. Jessica selects the presentation from her CAD and seamlessly controls the screen that everyone sees during the meeting. Data reduction technologies have transformed our ability to share large files over pipes that have not expanded as much as they have in other countries. All CAP’s have file reduction filters that reduce the density of data to enhance speed.
The conference is recorded and notes are logged for future access and work flow.
5:30 P.M. - A good friend calls Jessica and invites her to a social meet-up that night where live auditions are being broadcast for a popular reality TV show. Live video venues stream concerts, theatre, church, government proceedings, legal disputes and parades, with screens and sound closely replicating the feel of being there. This becomes a more affordable and accessible means of attending “live” events. They agree to meet at 6:30.
6:30 P.M. - Jessica uses her CAD to buy admission and dinner while at the event.
8:00 P.M. - Once home, Jessica plugs in her CAD and settles down at the portable screen on her coffee table. Reclining on the couch, she enables her online persona, which accesses her profile that was previously created and saved, including likes and dislikes for every category relevant to her. Her search results offer a plethora of gift ideas for her father, easily purchased and delivered without any concerns about identity theft or creeps hacking her real identity.
11 P.M. - Once in bed, Jessica voice-enables her alarm and reads from her wireless reader, which drifts to sleep-mode after Jessica.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into our collective future and it’s given you some inspiration for innovation. Don’t settle on expected marketing. Know your target, research the options and create a marketing plan that will engage and inspire. Let me know what you think.
In my next post, I’ll report about Jessica’s world from the marketer’s perspective. What will these technology innovations mean for us as we try to sculpt the most effective marketing plans? Until then, enjoy the moment.
About The B2Bblogger: Dan co-founded the Chicago public relations and search engine optimization firm, Vivid Ascent, to change the definition of integrated marketing. By placing Internet behavior at the center of how people buy, public relations, advertising, website design and social media become much more powerful.
Prior to Vivid Ascent Dan was the Global Director of Advertising for Accenture. He spent the first twelve years of his career at J. Walter Thompson and was President of the International Advertising Association (IAA) Chicago Chapter for five years. You can read more from Dan at Vivid Ascent’s PR, social media and SEO blog or follow him on Twitter @danielmobrien.
B2B Social Media & Content Marketing
Online Magazine for B2B Marketers
Connect
B2Bbloggers.com
Hi, I'm @jeremyvictor, the founder of Make Good Media and Editor In Chief of B2Bbloggers.com.
B2Bbloggers.com is an online magazine for B2B marketers. Our goal is to engage, educate, and make it easier for B2B marketers to find the information they care about to do their jobs successfully.
As a publisher and new media marketing agency, Make Good Media advises businesses how to integrate social media and content marketing with traditional marketing tactics to attract, nurture, engage, and convert customers in the brave new B2B world of the social, mobile web. How can we help you Make Good Media?
Looking at this diagram reminds me of playing darts. Darts may be a more effective method of allocating budgets because multi-channel measurement is still in its infancy. Even when we have data from all the individual channels, we still don’t know how the combined formula impacts the bottom line. It’s alchemy and it can blow up!
Here’s how to evaluate the right channel strategy:
About The B2Bblogger: Dan co-founded the Chicago public relations and search engine optimization firm, Vivid Ascent, to change the definition of integrated marketing. By placing Internet behavior at the center of how people buy, public relations, advertising, website design and social media become much more powerful.
Welcome back to the future. In my part one of 
