CMO.com generously provided a handful of marketing predictions for 2011. Following these prophecies by some well respected marketing experts I’ve added a few of my own. Feel free to include your thoughts to the list.From CMO.com –
Doug Kessler, Creative Director & Co-Founder, Velocity Partners:
"Lines between sales and marketing will blur, and the functional silos will start to blend into one revenue department. After all, a marketer is just the first salesperson, and a sales dude is just a marketer working a bit lower down the funnel."
Tim Suther, CMO, Acxiom:
"Broadcasting--a strategy based on reach, where targeting and segmentation are limited--will migrate to narrowcasting. Marketers will leverage data to reach the most valuable prospects with greater certainty of message delivery, acceptance, and, most importantly, participation. These narrowcast audiences will be multi-dimensionally defined across shopping, purchasing, and attitudinal behaviors. Utilizing the narrowcasting approach will require a shift in campaigns."
Bill Koleszar, Executive Director, The CMO Institute:
"With the increasing emphasis on transparency and reputation management, CEOs will work to add board members with deep marketing and public relations experience. This will result in additional expectations for already-stretched CMOs relative to increasing and protecting the value of their brands."
Jake Wengroff, Global Director of Corporate Communications, Frost & Sullivan:
"Some companies will actually scale back social media. Here's why: Some strategies are not working. So rather than, say, continuing to keep up a company's blog or collection of blogs by several company executives, companies are going to turn them off or instead have their executives or thought leaders serve as regular or guest bloggers for larger, more well-established sites."
Donovan Neale-May, Executive Director, CMO Council:
"Watch for the dawn of 'Mobile 2.0.' Mobile marketing will push beyond the one-way point to multipoint-message push of first-generation mobile marketing and then evolve into mobile relationship marketing--a multi-touch, bidirectional engagement channel. The quest for targeted, personalized, highly relevant, and localized marketing that seeks to activate customers, foster loyalty, and drive a passive customer into an active buyer will look to manifest in this next generation of mobile."
Steve Rubel, SVP, Director of Insights, Edelman Digital
"In 2011 marketers will begin to realize that return on attention--starting with their share of time per user per month--is a far better way to measure conversions. Reach and impression metrics will slowly fade into the background as supporting data points."
Paul Parkin, Founding Partner, SALT Branding:
"2011 is going to the year of 'brandalism.' Consumers want engagement, and this year they are going to get it--with or without your help. They don't want to just participate in your brands conversation; they want to shape it, control it, sell it, evangelize it, or even destroy it!"
Kate O'Neill, CEO and Founding Partner, [meta]marketer:
"This coming year brings great opportunity for marketing to drive the decision-making process, provide strategic definition around cost and value, and deliver ROI insights for companywide programs. With the data available in most marketing departments, companies can prepare relevant programs to acquire and retain customers profitably, even as customers' motivations shift and they become increasingly savvy online."
Vikram Bhaskaran, Director, Strategy and Business Development, L2:
"In 2011, marketing will get harder--there are only so many brands that people will 'like' and 'follow'--but could also get cheaper as the most innovative brands develop creative programs and generate compelling content, allowing them to build direct relationships with their consumers as opposed to paying ad dollars to media companies."
Brent Dykes, Director, Consulting & Excellence, Adobe Systems:
"More companies will invest in social plugins and Facebook for Websites (Connect) in order to bring Facebook's single sign-on and features to their own Web sites. It's win-win for both sides. Customers use the same features they love on Facebook, and companies can acquire new visitors and gain valuable demographic insights into their customers."
Now just a few 2011 predictions of my own:
1. Companies will begin to place much greater emphasis on the customer experience both on and offline. Consumers are getting weary of sales associates who don’t seem to value their business, and ecommerce sites that make it virtually impossible to get a quick response to a simple question. Management is finally beginning to realize that consumers have far too many options to put up with poor customer service for long.
2. Brick & mortar businesses will pay more attention to brand loyalty online. With geo-based mobile and social media platforms like Yelp, Foursquare and Places allowing online users to instantly influence consumer behavior virtually at the point of sale, companies will proactively seek to impact perceptions by offering greater rewards and incentives to loyal customers and advocates digitally. (See Donovan Neale-May prediction)
3. Companies will begin to realize that the rewards of corporate social responsibility come from practicing it for the benefit of the customer and community, not for the benefit of the corporate reputation. When CSR is practiced appropriately, the brand benefits will take care of themselves.
What do you think marketers should expect to see in 2011?
