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The Future of Marketing

Businesswoman standing on a ladder looking through binocularsWhen you sit and think about the direction that marketing is going in, you can’t leave out social and mobile. I think that we all can agree that it is not a passing fad. A marketing/pr strategic plan that does not include these two elements is doomed for mediocracy.

The future winners will be those that can develop super creative content that can break through all of the clutter. Right now agencies are losing talented, out of the box thinking people to the Facebook’s and Google’s of the world. I think the future will be such that many big brands move away from the BIG agencies. The creative genius can now be found in freelancers, smaller agencies, and proper development of internal staff.

Here is a great article about Keith Weed’s, chief marketing for the Unilever brand, view on the future of marketing.

What do you see about the future of marketing/pr? Are BIG agencies going to remain the staple for BIG brands? Can brands train their own people do that they can save a chunk of their budget?

Marketing Plan Check Up

We are over half way through the year and it is time to reflect back on the success of your current marketing plan.  In order to gain a detailed look into your success, objectively take a “step” back and outline the goals you were hoping to achieve from your campaign.  Determine if you had elements in place to actually measure the outcomes accurately.  Pull out the accounting of how much you spent and a tracking of all of the free and ‘paid for’ elements that were included in your plan.

So, now that you have done all of your prep work.  Let’s take a close to look to see where you are at and where you need for go for the rest of the year.  Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Did our marketing campaign raise awareness of our product or service? We are able to measure this by ________________________.

2. Did the dollars spent on the marketing campaign yield the results we were hoping for with the campaign?

3. Are their pieces of the marketing campaign that need to be removed from the line up due to the fact that they did not result in meeting the company objectives?

4. Are their pieces of the campaign that we need to make sure stays in the campaign for the remainder of the year?

5.  If we were to add something new to our marketing campaign, it would be _________.

This list of questions is a great place to start when examining the success or failure of a marketing campaign.  The company’s that take the time to reflect back on their marketing campaigns are the company’s the see the most success.