Master the Marketing Channels Set to Win Next Year

 Find out which marketing channels will win more time and money and which will lose out when it comes to marketing budgets in the New Year.

Happy New Year to the Marketing Channels Set to Win in the New Year

New survey shows which marketing channels will win a greater share of the New Year’s marketing plans and budget allocations, and which will lose out. In the New Year, look for ways to tweak your plan with emerging marketing trends like these.

All in all, 90% of business leaders surveyed by StrongView plan to either maintain or increase their marketing budget next year. But which marketing channels will come out on top when it comes to marketers allocation of time and money?

Newly released data from StrongView (now Selligent) indicates which marketing channels marketers will rely on to grow. As you lay out next year’s marketing plan, be sure your communications are integrated across the most effective marketing channels for your organization and industry.

 

Marketing Channels On Trend – Marketing Winners

1. Email Marketing

Not only is email marketing not dead, it remains a marketing and sales best friend. 52% of survey respondents said that email marketing would get a larger share of the marketing budget in 2014, compared to just 2% that said the email marketing budget would decrease.

Email marketing should be a regular part of your marketing strategy. Here are just a few of the reasons why from “25 Mind Blowing Email Marketing Stats” on Salesforce.com:

• 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase based on a promotional email in 2012
• Reach – Roughly 50% of an email list will be active, either through opening or clicking on emails
• 70% of consumers said they had made use of a coupon or discount from a marketing email in a given week

2. Social Media Marketing

Despite the fact that social media marketing ROI (return on investment) can be difficult to measure, 46% of those surveyed plan to spend more on social media marketing in 2014 while 2% say they will spend less. To find out whether social media merits a greater portion of your marketing budget, you’ll need to know more than the number of social followers you have.

Focus on social media marketing results that you can measure; such as:

• How much web traffic your site is receiving from social networks (freely available using Google analytics)
• How much social traffic is coming to the landing pages you want them to visit
• Whether members of your social networks (or traffic derived from social networks) are taking the actions you want them to take (subscribing, providing contact information, downloading ebooks and whitepapers, calling, requesting more information, requesting quotes, converting to customers, providing referrals, etc.)

3. Organic and Paid Search Marketing (SEO/PPC)

41% of survey respondents plan to spend more on Search Marketing in 2014, including SEO and PPC (organic and paid search optimization); only 4% of survey respondents plan to spend less. The ever-evolving nature of search engine algorithms can make search marketing difficult to master, but its importance in bringing traffic to your web site is impossible to dispute. Start by ensuring your website and blog are aligned with Google’s best practices or consider allocating a portion of your marketing budget to outsourcing SEO to an expert.

If you are considering outsourcing some or all of your SEO strategy, be sure that you choose an individual or company that understands the unique needs and make up of your industry as well as how to personalize your optimization in order to maximize reach to your ideal client types and target markets.

4. Online Display Advertising

36% plan to spend more on digital ads in 2014; 5% plan to spend less. Online display ads, such as banner ads and other visual ads commonly displayed on websites you may visit every day (such as news sites or blogs) can be more costly than some other forms of online marketing; however, they also provide more metrics to justify the spend than print counterparts. Online display advertising, done well, puts display ads on-page for the site visitor who is ready to buy.

5. Mobile Marketing

The last of 2014 marketing trend’s big winners, 42% will spend more on mobile marketing; only 2% plan to spend less. Mobile traffic represents a significant amount of web traffic overall, but may represent an even larger or a smaller share of your own site’s traffic (you can find out how much traffic comes to your website using Google analytics).

Two compelling stats about mobile marketing caught our attention in this wordstream.com article:

• People browse through 70% more web pages on tablets than smartphones
• Retail conversion rates are 3.3% on PC, 2.2% on tablets and 0.7% on smartphones
• Mobile searches increased 200% in 2012 compared to 2011

As more and more computing devices come onto the scene categorized as mobile (such as iPhones, android or smartphones, tablets and other portable devices with web-viewing capabilities), it will become even more important to ensure that your website and blog have both PC and mobile-friendly versions and that both are optimized for search engine’s best practices.

Also important to remember is that many consumers research products using mobile devices but ultimately make purchases on PC; in other words, both types of devices are likely to be used by an individual buyer at one point or another during the buying cycle.

Marketing Channels on Trend – Still Gaining

6. Trade Shows

21% plan to increase spending on marketing via trade shows while 15% plan to decrease their trade show marketing spend. Trade show costs can add up quickly, especially when travel is involved. Test the waters by promoting your business at a local trade show or community event, if possible.

Getting a good return on trade show marketing – a return that exceeds expenses – will take some planning; hubspot.com recently shared a great list of tradeshow marketing tips on their blog. Make sure that a significant portion of attendees will be members of your target markets and know what your trade show marketing goals will be.

Trade show marketing goals might include:

• Getting new customers (obviously!)
• Building your pipeline of contacts and leads (especially for products with a long buying cycle)
• Increase in brand awareness
• Increase in web traffic, social followers and subscriptions
• Identifying new business networking partnerships/ opportunities
• Identifying new target markets or segmenting your markets for more focused marketing

7. Public Relations / PR

While most people are aware of the way that the internet has impacted news media in terms of reporting, many marketers are just beginning to understand that they have the power to publish press releases and have those releases appear in national and even international publications, thanks to services such as www.prweb.com. Press releases which are picked up by media outlets can enhance not only your organization’s reach but can also have a positive impact on your SEO (search engine optimization) efforts, providing valuable backlinks from authoritative sites to your website and directing qualified leads to your landing pages.

Marketing Channels On Trend – Losing Ground

The three marketing tactics which are losing ground in 2014 include the three traditional marketing channels which are being supplanted by many of the tactics above:

8. Print Advertising

32% of marketers are decreasing their budgets for print advertising; only 10% of survey respondents plan to spend more on print ads in 2014. If your print ad spend can’t be tied to any measurable marketing results, it may be time to repurpose those marketing dollars into more effective tactics.

Make sure you are making the most of your print ad spend by evaluating how many members of your target markets are likely to be reached by the publication or periodical, and create dedicated landing pages with contact-information-capturing forms on your web site to help measure incoming web traffic and leads driven by print ads.

9. Direct Mail 21% will decrease spend on direct mail marketing while 16% plan to increase their direct mail marketing budgets. Direct mail marketing is not dead; but as with other marketing channels, marketers are no longer content to spend money on direct mail marketing in the absence of measurable results.

Creating web-friendly print marketing materials and dedicated landing pages can help you more accurately determine whether direct mail marketing is helping you grow your business. In addition, using direct mail marketing to build brand awareness and drive traffic to social sites or to landing pages for free coupons, white papers or e-books may be a way to use direct mail marketing as part of an integrated, long-term strategy rather than simply advertising a product or service hoping for a direct sale.

10. Radio and TV Advertising 17% will spend less on TV and Radio ads in 2014; 9% will spend more. Even if TV or radio advertising is not within reach of your budget, it’s important to point out that you can still develop video and audio productions that help to attract leads and convert leads into customers. Using nothing more than a smartphone or do-it-yourself presentation software or websites, you can publish and self-promote videos, slideshows, webinars and other presentations to help promote your business.

Do you wonder whether these marketing trends are pertinent to your organization? Here are some statistics about survey participants:

Size of Organizations Surveyed

• 33% – Small businesses from 1 to 50 employees
• 12% – from 51 to 100 employees
• 18% – from 101 to 500 employees
• 8% – from 501 to 1000 employees
• 29% – more than 1000 employees

75% of the organizations surveyed were in North America, and included members of the following industries:

• Automotive
• Business Services
• Education
• Financial Services
• Healthcare
• Manufacturing
• Marketing / Advertising
• Media / Entertainment / Publishing
• Non-Profit
• Online Services
• Retail
• Technology / Internet
• Travel / Leisure / Hospitality
• Other