Top 7 Integrated Marketing Trends for 2012: PART 2

Leading Vancouver Advertising and Marketing firm CastleCS gazes into the year ahead and identifies the Integrated Marketing trends that will define, determine and drive businesses that get to the next level.

In part 1 of our look at the year ahead, we identified 4 key trends that will dominate the Integrated Marketing landscape. Now, let’s reveal the remaining 3! We’ll start off with a brand new entrant to the scene.

2012 Integrated Marketing Trend #5: Welcome to SPECIALITY marketing. 

This year, we’re going to see more integrated speciality storefronts for key products and services. These will include microsites, video, email marketing, PPC and other targeted outreach methods. And just as importantly, these integrated specality storefronts will be promoted accordingly. They will, in effect, be businesses within a business. So if you’ve spent 2011 and prior years thinking you had a business that served customers, we have some news for you in 2012: you don’t. Rather, you have many businesses that serve many customers. Your task in 2012 will be to understand where those divisions are, and craft speciality marketing to exploit all the opportunities.

2012 Integrated Marketing Trend #6: Mobile Marketing Makes its MOVE.

Just as how bandwidth limitations held web technology back for years (few things were as aggravating as waiting minutes for an ultra-cool website to eke its way through a narrow, dial-up-esque connection), mobile technology has suffered the same fate…until now. And we can thank the iPad for this. The iPad has reinvented the definition of mobile marketing. It’s not longer about just checking emails or instant messages; it’s a rich experience that rivals some desktops. Except it’s not a desktop, it’s in your customers’ hands as they sit in the Starbucks around the corner, looking for a solution to their problem. And guess what? YOU are the solution to their problem – but only if you’re on the mobile highway in 2012. If not, be assured that your competitors will be – if they aren’t already.

2012 Integrated Marketing Trend #7: You win the marketing game by taking an INVESTMENT PORTFOLIO approach.

You wouldn’t choose your investment portfolio by randomly picking stocks and assets, or worse, blindly accepting whatever your advisor (or know-it-all relative) tells you to do. Heck, you wouldn’t even buy groceries without carefully considering what you need, why you need it, and when you’ll need it for. Oddly, however, that’s precisely how many businesses have approached their marketing spend in the past. They’ve just added more and more to their basket of marketing goodies and hoped that, somehow, the $1 they spent would be eventually worth $5. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case and that $1 has lost value. In 2012, smart businesses are going to buck this depressing trend by taking an investment portfolio approach to their marketing mix. They will have a solid base, an established and proven advisor (apologies to all of the know-it-all relatives out there), and focus on strategies, tactics and solutions that turn $1 into $5. After all, isn’t that how marketing was supposed to work? In 2012, the smart money-makers will remember this principle and use it to get to the next level.

So there you have the top 7 Integrated Marketing Trends in 2012. But how do you turn these trends into measurable results and clear advantages? That’s easy: you connect with CastleCS.

We have the proven and cost-effective systems, strategies and solutions to help your business get ahead of these trends and make them work for you – and against your competition. But remember not to put it off until next week or next month because that invariably becomes next year. To maximize your advantage, you want to exploit these 2012 Integrated Marketing trends while they’re in front of your and not in the rear-view mirror. By then, it just might be too late.