There will always be customers. As human beings it is our nature to want to grow, prosper and enjoy life. We will always need services, products and education and will always yearn for more. So post recession times can be seen through rose colored glasses. Once consumer confidence is back to normal, businesses have the opportunity to flourish. The question is how do we convey marketing messages to this new consumer?
I say new consumer because throughout this recession certain things have happened. Not only did newspaper subscription decline so much that many have gone belly up, but Twitter traffic now surpasses NYT and WSJ. Direct Marketers will be eliminating or drastically minimizing budgets for Free Standing Inserts (FSI) as well as print ads as readership goes down. Online banner ads on the web versions have lost their value as well. The new consumer wants to engage and feel proud they are a customer. They want to be a fan and announce to the world they stand behind your product and are happy to pass the good news on to others.
Direct mail will certainly feel the heat as well, as consumers will want to know about what you have to offer in 140 characters or less. And they want to know immediately. By the time a mail piece goes through design; copywriters; editors; marketing; upper management for approval; printing quotes; printing process; blue line proofs; etc, it is a month or months too late. Micro-sites, landing pages that can be created on the fly will prevail. E-brochures will also be part of this “new” movement. All of this can quickly go viral by links passing through the social networks, passed on by the best marketers of them all, the loyal customer.
The future of Pay Per Click? Well, the consumer is getting smarter. It appears that they want to know a company is top ranked organically to feel a part of the “Best Practices” club. Unless sponsored links are morphed into a community message, this will lose its ROI factor as well.
The marketing role will be redefined to match the new consumer. It’s all coming together, no fail whale on the horizon. T-shirt companies are already capitalizing on the moment. Will you?
You're in for a big surprise regarding social networking. Check out the latest studies about Twitter for instance. Evidence shows that close to 70% never post anything to their account once they signed up. The rest of the findings was dismal as well.
I have to give it to Twitter (and the investors behind it), the buzz campaign was very successful and expensive. But no adoption means no long term success.
All marketers can do is make sure they use a buzz word here and there in their plan to appear on the cutting edge. This was turn 15 years ago and it is still true today.