What 2013 Holds in Store for Interactive Marketing

Ask any marketer today about her number-one goal, outside of selling the product or service she offers, and you will likely hear “engaging the market.” The new marketing is highly conversational, with a back and forth between the market and the company to build relationships and grow trust. Interactive marketing, as this is known, is continuing to evolve, and marketing research trends indicate there will be some changes in 2013.

 

Continued Shift from Product-Driven to Costumer-Centric Marketing

According to marketing expert Peter Fisk, the successful interactive marketing strategy in 2013 is going to be one that focuses on the customer. Customer-centric marketing will be the most successful form of marketing. Companies will focus on their ideas and brands to draw customers, with their actual product or service being a secondary selling point.

This will reach out well to the customer of 2013 who is tired of having products pushed at him, but rather wants to know who the company he is dealing with really is. Putting a personality behind a brand is going to become even more important throughout 2013.

 

Push for Viral Engagement

“Going viral” is one of the best ways to market, and in 2013 you can expect to see marketers looking for ways to create content that will do just this. Articles, videos, blog posts, and offers that are spread through social media are a powerful marketing tactic. Because no one has the ability to determine which media offerings will go viral, marketers are likely going to focus on producing significant amounts of content covering a range of media types in hope of capturing the attention of the social media universe.

 

Focus on Solomo Customers

“Solomo” refers to social, local, and mobile, and this is a customer that the mobile age has created. The number of mobile customers is growing, with the Ericsson Traffic and Market Report indicating there are 6.3 billion mobile subscriptions in the world in 2012. These consumers are constantly connected to their social network, interested in local information and increasingly mobile, thus the term “solomo.” They want to use their smartphone or tablet to see what the best company is where they are at the moment, so location-based marketing is going to be the focus of most marketing budgets.

Based on current research trends, marketing in 2013 is going to continue to be interactive, focusing on building a conversation between the brand and the consumer. Marketers will continue to push for their messages to go viral, but the change is going to be focusing on creating a personality for the brand while reaching out to solomo customers through an increased focus on local and mobile marketing. The savvy business will hire a marketer who is able to accomplish these three tasks well to prime themselves for success in the coming year.

Tags: interactive marketing strategy, marketing research trends

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2012 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Career Resources, Hiring Advice, industry news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.