It's Time to Rethink Your Marketing Tactics

CU360
September 12, 2007 | COMMENTS

Still using the same marketing tactics you were using five years ago? Those won't work with today's shifting demographics and preferences. The U.S. population is older, more multicultural, more time-pressed, and more jaded toward overt sales pitches than ever before. And your marketing strategy should be built accordingly.

So what's working? After consulting over a dozen experts in the field, Entrepreneur.com uncovered the following marketing trends.

Market on the Move

By 2008, 89% of brands will use text and multimedia messaging to reach their audiences, with nearly one-third planning to spend more than 10% of their marketing budgets on advertising in the medium, according to the Mobile Marketing Association. As phones with video capability become more prevalent, expect more rich media marketing options. Plus, now that mobile phone service providers are dipping their toes into the credit card pool, phones or PDAs could soon make plastic obsolete.

"There are some low-cost mobile marketing onramps for small businesses," says Kim Bayne, author of Marketing without Wires. "Businesses can implement opt-in text messaging services and coupons with their loyal customers. We've already seen local restaurants send the day's specials to nearby lunch patrons. The cost is fairly low, and it can be done from a PC, without involving a pricey service provider."

Go Online

"Think globally, act locally" is now the mantra for online advertising. Online ad spending continues to rise, says David J. Moore, chairman and CEO of digital marketing firm 24/7 Real Media Inc. in New York City. For example, in 2006 Google announced a new local advertising program linked to its map service and AdWords program, allowing businesses to drive some of Google's traffic to their brick-and-mortar locations.

"Pay attention to any targeting that lets you increase advertising efficiency by reaching users in their particular geographic area," says Moore. Online ads are also migrating to podcasts and blogs, where advertisers can reach very specific niche audiences. And with increased access to broadband and the falling cost of video production, Moore foresees a rise in online video ads for businesses as well.

Court the Boom

A baby boomer turns 50 every 7 seconds—joining a population segment that will grow 25% in the next decade while other segments remain flat.

Matt Thornhill, founder of consulting firm The Boomer Project, which helps businesses reach adults born between 1946 and 1964, says it's time for marketers to recalibrate their thinking about marketing to older adults. Boomers are a dynamic group that's much more open to new experiences and brands than previous generations of older adults have been.

Thornhill says marketers should target boomers by what they're doing instead of how old they are. "Boomers are living such cyclical lives. In their 40s or 50s, they could be going back to college, be empty nesters, or be married a second time and raising a young family," he explains. "You wouldn't sell the same product or service to all these people. So pick the lifestyle segment you're targeting, and focus on that."

Advertise in Unusual Places

From valet tickets and hubcaps to T-shirts emblazoned with video displays, advertising is popping up in new places. A survey of marketing executives by Blackfriars Communications found that business spending on traditional advertising continued its decline, and spending on nontraditional marketing methods--from online promotions to buzz marketing—has risen by 12% since late 2005.

Scott Montgomery, principal and creative director of Bradley and Montgomery, an advertising and branding firm in Indianapolis, says the shift in ad spending will continue as advertisers look to make their ad dollars more effective.

Montgomery and his team were the first to develop advertising programs on electrical outlets in airports. Reasoning that business travelers—one of the “Holy Grail” audiences marketers love—power up portable technology while waiting for their planes, it seemed a natural place to reach them.

Andrew Rohm, professor of marketing at Northeastern University's College of Business Administration in Boston, says smaller businesses can often "trickle up" more easily than large brands, which may find that customers are resistant to accepting their more expensive offerings. "A small brand can reinvent itself without having to swim upstream against its image," says Rohm.

Blog On

With the blogosphere more than 43.1 million blogs strong, according to blog search engine Technorati, it appears everyone and his grandmother are blogging. Robert Scoble, technical evangelist at Microsoft and author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, believes blogs are important for businesses that want direct customer feedback. And development blogs, where businesses get direct input about products and services from readers, will soon become even more important, he says.

Scoble predicts a rise in regional blogs linked to Google's new local advertising program and Mapquest.com for quick access to directions, giving people more insight into the local businesses they want to frequent. He also says we'll see more video blogs, which won't replace text blogs but will more effectively communicate with some audiences.

Make It Stick

Tap these marketing trends to get into customers' hearts and minds:

• Multicultural market. By 2010, the buying power of American blacks and Hispanics is expected to exceed the gross domestic product of Canada, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia in Athens . Make sure you're not overlooking this market. Translate materials when appropriate, but also be conscious of cultural images. In lifestyle shots, go beyond multicultural casting. Show scenes where the clothing, food, and other backgrounds reflect different cultures.
• Experiential marketing. Kathy Sherbrooke, president of Circles, an experiential marketing firm in Boston, says businesses must figure out the key messages of their brand and find ways for their staffs and locations to reflect that image—young and trendy, sophisticated and elegant, and so on.
• Customer evangelism. From hiring word-of-mouth marketing companies to creating incentives for customer referrals, businesses are placing more importance on customer evangelism, says Andrew Pierce, senior partner at New York City branding firm Prophet. "Companies need to be customer-centric for this to happen," he explains. "If you're not finding ways to increase value and inspire loyalty, it won't work."

At the simplest level, Pierce advises using customer testimonials to add credibility to marketing efforts, including webinars where members talk about your credit union. More extreme examples include buzz marketing campaigns where happy members talk up your products.