Marketing trends for 2011

As we jump into 2011, certain marketing trends will serve us well in the coming year:

1. Social media is here to stay. This is a trend that will definitely continue in 2011. We need to stop thinking about the “cool factor” and really focus in on the true customer interactions that can happen with an effective SM strategy. Let’s figure out how to use these interactions to inform future marketing efforts and maximize customer value.


2. Lead nurturing is at the forefront. For years, marketers have discussed demand generation and have looked at increasing the number of new leads as the most important activity. It is certainly an important focus and continues to drive revenue. But it seems that now we have turned a (good) corner. The focus should not only be on how many leads we have coming in, but how we can nurture these leads, generate true interest and improve their sales readiness. In this way, we can maximize the ROI of our lead generation programs and cost per lead while passing truly qualified leads to our sales teams.


3. Understanding the marketing system. In the past, marketers had a tendency to take a top-down approach to their strategy. We worked on campaigns, on PR, on our websites, etc. But reality has finally set in. We must look at the overall system. Instead of looking at your efforts in a linear fashion, think about it as a circular process – for example, how to create a Website so that it takes advantage of social media, uses content to fuel media interest, and how the next campaign will feed off of this content and maximizes the value of the online interactions of customers and website visitors. Then, use the results of all of these to inform what you will do next week, next month, next quarter.


4. Focus on building relationships. This one is really nothing new or earth-shattering. But we do think that it is critical and one that’s easy to forget as we are all under pressure to generate leads and increased revenue, to do what is new and exciting especially in our digitally-focused world. The key is to figure out which of these strategies will really enable us to engage, to connect and to build the relationships that are so critical in our ever competitive-environment. How do we show the marketplace that we really understand the challenges and then how we bring the right solutions to the table? We need to think about PEOPLE and their NEEDS to solve real problems…not companies, not just demographics.