Two 1to1weekly articles recently caught my eye. The first, from March of this year, quotes Aberdeen Group research fellow Jeff Zabin in a discussion of an Aberdeen study, Recessionary Marketing: How Best-in-Class Companies are Weathering the Storm. Zabin reports that while marketers are cutting their marketing budgets, they are not doing so universally across all channels, but in fact, are investing more in some channels: “The report found that a majority of best-in-class companies have cut their traditional media - 60 percent have cut television and print advertising, 45 percent have cut trade promotion, and 62 percent have cut their event budgets. Many of those who have cut traditional advertising are increasing their investments in infrastructure and technology to enable social media (68 percent), email marketing (47 percent), online promotions (41 percent), search engine marketing (38 percent), and mobile marketing (16 percent).” Another new trend the study found was that many marketers are starting from the ground up in completely revamping their marketing plans, something Zabin says he has never seen before.
The second article appeared this week, citing recent research from Forrester. As economic recovery continues to elude us, Forrester finds that many marketers are unwilling to take a risk with new, untested applications like online video and mobile marketing, no matter how lucrative the potential rewards may be. In 2008, interest in mobile marketing, online video and social media was very high, but as the economy deteriorated, the investments did not follow the enthusiasm. Shar VanBoskirk, a vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, says, “Marketers are primarily sticking with what they know this year. This means they're not that willing, or able due to resource constraints, to trial untested media like online video.”
The migration of marketing budgets away from broadcast and print media is not good news for the printing industry, but it is certainly not new news. The current economic situation has accelerated the move, but the slowdown in adoption of “new-new” media such as social media actually gives firms that have not made the move to integrated multi-channel services some breathing room. Not much, but some. Now is the time to gain expertise in such things as variable data, TransPromo, personalized URLs, and email marketing if you have not yet done so. Or at a minimum, find a partner who can help you. Marketers want mechanisms with proven results, and there are plenty of public disclosures of results that can be cited for integrated campaigns and TransPromo that include a blend of print and alternative media. Better yet, do some of your own multi-channel campaigns to promote your business. That serves the multiple purposes of demonstrating to clients and prospects how this stuff works, giving your team experience with it in a safe environment and promoting your business. But don’t let social media, online video, mobile marketing and the like fall off the radar screen. Make no mistake, they will be here with a vengeance as the economy returns.
Discussion
By Michael J on Jul 14, 2009
Another opportunity to consider is to use Print to increase the value and analytics from social media.
Print + information rich QR codes might turn out to be a new way to use to Print. The under appreciated reality is that print in the form of postcards and "club cards" (handed out, instead of mailed) is the most effective way to engage new users in social media.
The ability of QR codes such as CodeZ QR to embed even more data than a pURL, means the message maker can get real data about whom clicked when and where they were when they clicked.
While it is true that smart phones are still not mainstream in the States, there is little doubt that they will be scale very soon.
Even more important than whetherit's real, mobile media is the big buzz du jour among the marketing types. If Print gets into the mix early enough, print might be seen as very cool.
Very cool is exactly where we need to be.
By Noel Ward on Jul 16, 2009
MJ,
As the cheerleader for QR codes, do you know how many companies in the US and Europe have integrated them into their marketing programs? And what kind of results they are seeing?
The codes seem limited in usefulness to those who have smartphones. More importantly, how many smartphone users actually know what a QR code is? Or care? And why should they care?
Maybe I'm missing something, or just don't get it, but QR codes seem at the moment to be a great idea with an incredibly narrow reach. Maybe too narrow to ever matter a whole lot.
By Noel Ward on Jul 16, 2009
Cary is right that the new marketing techniques and tools will blossom more as the economy improves. And it's important to begin at least playing with them now, even in limited ways, to be ready when things get better. By then, some of them, like Twitter, may actually mature enough to be truly useful. I find things like Linked In and Plaxo to be good. And Facebook is worthwhile. But Twitter needs some seasoning to be really effective.
For printers, though, the biggest challenge is even bothering to do any marketing at all. Too often it's exception processing. But since the basis of marketing is simply to promote awareness, many of the new tools are great for that, and easy to use. If something is easy to do, it's more likely to be done. And maybe that is much of what social media and other new techniques bring to the party.
By Michael J on Jul 16, 2009
Noel,
I think that folks are missing what's just over the horizon. It feels a bit to me like desktop color separations or even the early days of Postcript. I still remember the year that all of sudden everyone had a Mac.
QR codes were only invented in 1994 in Japan. Fast forward to 2008 the surveys say that over 50% of the cell phone users routinely use them in Japan.
Meanwhile consider that twitter was first invented in 2006. The iphone? 2 years? The kIndle 1 year?
Pepsi just finished a massive campaign in the UK putting QR codes on their soda cans. I think if you look at the waves sweeping the globe, instead of what's happening here in the States, it seems to me very clear that QR codes are going to scale sometime in the next 6 months to a year.
If you go on to twitter and search for #QR I think it will give a flavor for how big this could turn out to be.
The sooner printers see the opportunity to connect print to social media, the readier they will be if and when the storm hits.
Discussion
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