Over the past number of years the recession effected almost all marketing departments and their activities, departments not only reduced their size but heavily cut spend and in some cases even suspended key marketing initiatives to free up cash flow to sustain other parts of the business.
Did this stop the amount of advertising, brand awareness or direct marketing we received on a daily basis?
“No” you only have to look at the amount of emails we all receive on a daily basis from the likes of Ryanair, Aer Lingus, Groupon, Living Social, Amazon and Grab One Deals that promote a variety of deals for restaurants, hotels, low cost flights, online retailers, sports clubs and beauty salons.
Carefully crafted emails are still one of the best tools in regards return on investment on your marketing spend, This is why the emails we often receive are random offers, however now due to endless new technologies, Apps and social media companies have the opportunity to continuously analyse our buying patterns, likes, dislikes and tailor deals that not only appeal to us but make us buy.
Blogs have also been a key factor to increase brand awareness and take the focus away from pure direct mail offers, blogs give companies the opportunity to be expressive and create relevant content for their market audience and customers but maintaining a key tactic to drive traffic back to their website.
These blog and deals appear on the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and are shared on regular basis. The aim is to help target an even larger audience creating more and more website traffic and sales opportunities. It enables social media followers a reason to click through to the website that would never have done so before.
So what does that mean?
It means that the structure and the dynamics of a traditional marketing department have been reinvented. New positions, job titles and relevant qualifications have all changed and traditional marketing activities that would have been at the forefront of any prior marketing plan may not even be considered.
Companies are now focused on:
• Digital & Online brand awareness
• Using Social Media platforms to attract a larger target audience
• Analysis of their target market
• Likes / Dislikes on social media
• Tailoring campaigns relevant to customers and their interests
• Being mobile
• Rebranding
• Being found online through effective SEO
From interviewing marketers and speaking to many of our clients the current trend is that marketers have become smarter, innovative and those with good experience are in greater demand. Companies want to realign their digital, online and social marketing activities and significantly increase their efforts within this space.
How are you reinventing your marketing department?
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