INSIDE:

A New Perspective
This month most people take a look back over the previous year to see how far they’ve come and where they want to go in the coming year. In that spirit, we thought it made sense to step back and gain some perspective. But we want to take a BIG step back. See how much of this timeline affected your career personally.

1990 – Executives with real cache had bulky car phones and fax machines in their cars.

1995 – The internet was just starting to get traction via AOL but few people outside universities used it. It was often called the information superhighway or the world wide web.

2000 – Y2K was the big issue of the day and there was serious uncertainty whether we would have an operational power grid effective January 1, 2000.

2005 – Most people require faster than dial-up access to the Internet. The business community is completely dependent on email. Facebook is out there, but only a small percentage of college students are aware of it.

2010 – Social networking is ubiquitous and marketers want to know how to monetize it. We see the advent of group deal sites and celebrity-endorsement tweets.

So, what’s next? 2012 will surely be about sifting the wheat from the chaff. Small fish in the social media pond are going to swim away or be consumed by bigger fish. Likewise businesses who utilize social media services will need to focus their strategies and hone in on exactly what audiences they hope to reach and how they want to do it. It will be an exciting and productive time!

Email Comes Back Strong in 2012
According to a StrongMail survey in a recent article on Clickz, 60% of marketing executives plan to increase spending on email marketing in 2012, versus 55% who plan to increase spending on social media. Simms Jenkins, the author of the article, expects big wins for email in seven areas.

Acquisition – 32% of executives value email as an important acquisition initiative.

Awareness – Even if the audience doesn’t open the email, reading the subject line keeps the organization in the minds of its consumers.

Retention – Per Forrester’s, 88% of business to consumer firms use email marketing to retain customers.

Revenue – According to Jenkins, no matter how you track revenue, email is likely contributing to your bottom line.

Loyalty – Depending on the type of business, email can strengthen the bond between company.

Location-Based Tie Ins – Cross-promoting a special running through Foursquare or Twitter boosts the effectiveness of the location-based campaign.

Social – Again, cross-promotion and an interwoven communication strategy enhances engagement with consumers.

Social Gets Serious in 2012
For the past several years, social emphasis has been on growing your brand and increasing awareness. This year, it’s time to make social make good business sense. Likes that fail to lead to sales are no longer worth pursuing. Instead the important numbers are how many Likes it takes to make a sale. Tracking data carefully and adjusting content to improve ratios will lead to success in social media.

ROI

It’s old and boring and as true as ever, even with social media. Your strategy has to track back to your return on investment. Cross-promotion and reinforcement of message are the surest way to hit your ROI targets. It’s nothing new, but consistency and repetition will win the day. The biggest winners this year will be the companies that come up with interesting, engaging and clever campaigns that compel their audience to seek them out in multiple ways – via email, via location-based services and on the Internet.

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