Marketing Trends for 2012

Top 10 Marketing Trends for 2012
By Thomas Murrell MBA, CSP International Business Speaker

What does the year ahead hold in terms of marketing. I've pulled out the crystal ball and make these bold predictions.

1. The Year of MIM (Multi-channel Integrated Marketing)
2012 will be the year of streamlined multiple channels with consistent messaging and value propositions across all communication platforms.
Strategic direction will still be lead by senior management and this will fall out from strategic planning sessions, but 2012 will be the year when social media marketing starts to be talked about seriously by C-level executives in the Board Room.
Out of this conversation will emerge a whole raft of innovative integrated marketing programs that will be complex, commercial and sophisticated.
Once success has been established these marketing initiatives will become more integrated within existing business processes. They will drive a range of activities from capital raising, lead generation, sales, R&D, customer service, market research, communications, PR, personal presentations, brand development, personal branding, internal company culture, and business growth.
Customer, shareholder or capital attraction acquisition costs will be driven lower by these phenomena.

2. MarkITing.
Expect greater convergence between marketing and IT and the emergence of data mining, time tracking and greater accountability for marketing effort.
More sophisticated tracking of marketing spend and ROI will be driven by developments in IT and technical specialists becoming more marketing savvy.
Expect your IT people to have degrees in Marketing.
The technology will be on the cloud adding to collaboration and mobility. "Anytime, anywhere in groups" will become the new mantra of marketing teams.

3. Less Hype More Authenticity.
The growing citizen journalism revolution means greater scrutiny and exposure of dodgy or unethical business practices and a general turn-off to over-hyped spin.
Rising standards in public speaking and media engagement will be required by leaders to be themselves and more authentic from stakeholders who want the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
In 2012, it is all about authenticity and trust and not spin.

4. Timeless News
News cycles will get shorter and shorter and marketing savvy companies will have that uncanny ability to harness real-time responses in all aspects of marketing.
Quick, nimble and plugged in companies will pick up on trends and market sentiment quickly to drive strategic objectives for immediate response.
Be prepared to react instantly to breaking news, changes to your website, upgrades to investor presentations, staff changes, changes in share price, supply and demand considerations or negative stakeholder feedback.
Workflows and patterns will adapt to meaningfully engage in real time with stakeholders.
Warning, traditional 9 to 5 work patterns will go the way of the dinosaur.

5. Relevarketing
2012 will be the year of relevancy marketing with high resonance where market segmentation and niche marketing will be taken to a whole new level as marketers strive for the hew holy grail of relevancy in an increasingly complex and information saturated world.
Could this see a return to old values? My prediction is at least values based marketing trends based on being relevant at an individual level will emerge.

6. Mobile Madness
Think QR codes on everything - business cards, posters, point of purchase, pull up banners, traditional print advertising, brochures and all driving potential customers or investors back to a really well designed, intuitive and content rich website, blog or point of contact.

7. Centres of Social Influence
Expect a lot of metrics and effort going into identifying key centres of influence. Effort in identifying those that influence most in a positive way will give greatest ROI.
Expect to see more strategic thinking in this area.

8. Social Media Grows Up
Large corporates will experiment with social media and fail. Then they will learn and get better at it. Experts will dub this entering the social maturity stage in 2012 and marketing via this channel will become more innate.
More time, money and resources will be allocated to social media and management will be more specific about where to allocate budgets within social media.
Expect to see a shortage of experienced and talented social media marketers and an increase in training courses and formal studies in this area as more and more organizations large and small seek to leverage social media marketing strategies.

9. Reputation as a Currency
The concept of reputational capital will grow and the drive to position people, products and services that both individuals and companies trust will continue in 2012.
The reputation of the service, product, or company built around the personal brand of the CEO or founders more than any other characteristic will continue to emerge.
"Invest in the people first, then the project" will be the catch cry for those seeking to raise capital for new ventures.

10. The Cargo Cult of Bransonism
Expect more CEO positioning as a visible and credible personal brand in which to invest, such as highly stylized photo shoots and beefed up biographies to position CEOs more as rock stars, builders of the brand and keepers of the reputation than the conservative, bean counting managers of the past.
This is Bransonism at its best as the cargo cult of Sir Richard Branson reaches fever pitch.

Please consider Thomas as a keynote speaker on how to better market your organisation at your next conference or event.

Emang Manganese Project with Steven Michael MD Segue Resources (ASX:SEG)

A good example of social media for resource investment marketing.

Presentation by Managing Director Steven Michael (pictured).

Segue Resources (ASX:SEG) Presentation Stockwatch Feb 2012

View another webinar from 8M Media and Communications

Presentation and Public Speaking Skills Masterclass: 12–13 January 2012, Bangkok, Thailand

Topic: Presentation and Public Speaking Skills Masterclass
Date: 12 – 13 January 2012
Venue: Le Meridien Bangkok, Thailand

Pictured with delegates.

Feedback from Participants written on Evaluation forms:
What aspects of the course were particularly effective and useful? Kindly explain.
1) The Model, because it tells me what should be included in speech and what should be said first or last.
2) The feedback provided directly. Very constructive critique and clarity in the way it was done.
3) Very practical in our routine work. Build confidence.
4) Structure and methodology of training. Thomas expertise on every aspect of the course.

Feedback / Comments for Workshop Leader:-
1) Thomas deliver his lecture clearly and precise.
2) Exceeded expectations.
4) Great job, thanks! I learnt a lot.

Overcome your fear of public speaking! Contact Thomas now for a one on one coaching session or a seminar.

Presentation and Public Speaking Skills Masterclass - Singapore 9 –10 January 2012

Topic: Presentation and Public Speaking Skills Masterclass
Date: 9 –10 January 2012
Venue: Crowne Plaza Changi Airport, Singapore

Pictured with delegates.

Feedback from Participants written on Evaluation forms:
What aspects of the course were particularly effective and useful? Kindly explain.
1) Case studies and examples. Structure of presentation
2) “Strategies for targeting your message to your audience”. It is a very useful and powerful tool to help you build and deliver our speech more effectively and efficiently.
3) Knowing how to apply the impact and presenting effectively in sequence and structure
4) Course structure
5) Plan for Keynote speech, practical exercise
6) Develop the structure of the speech
7) Specific tools like “where to look, structure of a speech, body language and do and donts”
8) The video taping of the presentation and feedback

Feedback / Comments for Workshop Leader:-
1) Enthusiastic and charismatic, great delivery and facilitation
2) Great skills
3) The number of participants was an ideal number
4) Excellent
5) Thomas is an excellent speaker. I am glad to have enrolled for this course
6) A very outstanding and creditable public speaker whom will absolutely help you to deliver a presentation confidently and passionately.

To be a better public speaker contact Thomas today.

Secrets of Email Marketing Course Marketing Institute of Singapore January 11th 2012

Feedback from Secrets of Email marketing, Marketing Institute of Singapore, January 11th 2012, Singapore

Pictured with Delegates.

What do you like most about this course?Interesting speaker! Enjoy the program. June Lee, Marketing Executive, SCITIFIC Pte Ltd
Very easy to understand. Ariane, Membership Executive, Marketing Institute of Singapore Training Centre
Many tips given for do's for email marketing and the definite no-no's. Trainer had good substantial knowledge on the subject matter.
The planning of how to construct the email. Elynnda Chen, Membership Sales Executive, The National University of Singapore Society
Trainer is interesting. Sarah Germaine Grant, Manager, Singapore Management University
The trainer and his effectiveness in communication. Siti Rabaah, Marketing Executive, HL Display (Asia) Pte Ltd
Objectives met. Learnt concepts that were useful to my work. Miki Shen, Marketing & Communications Executive
Some useful tips such as relationship building emails rather than traditional email.
Very relevant to my job and helps to realign my focus. Belda Chen, Assistant Marketing Manager, Klapsons, The Boutique Hotel

To book Thomas for your next event or program contact him here.

Ivan Misner BNI Founder on CNBC Today Show in New York

Networking: How men and women differ
"Business Networking and Sex" author Ivan Misner and workplace expert Nicole Williams discuss the gender issues that come into play when making professional contacts and how men and women can learn from each other.

Watch interview.

I'm looking forward to going to his event on June 13th in Perth.

The Metrics of Sales and Marketing

How do you measure marketing?

It is an age old question.

The common thought .... half your marketing efforts are wasted ... but what half?

Sales is an obvious metric to measure?

What about measuring conversion rates? Especially sales conversions.

Here are five tips from Mark Ryski.

1. Understand why people don't buy: one of the most important things a marketer can do to improve conversion rates is to understand why people don’t buy. Long till line ups, can’t find sales help, out-of-stocks, poor merchandising, the list goes on. There are reasons why people visit your store and don’t buy and you need to understand it. Every store manager should spend some time observing visitors in his/her store. Resist the temptation to help; just observe the behaviors. Watch customers as they move through your store, and it won’t take long for you to identify some actions you can take to turn more visitors into buyers.

2. Align your staff to traffic not transactions: Sounds simple enough, but one many retailers overlook. Staff scheduling is tricky at the best of times, but aligning your staff resources to when prospects are in your store will help you maximize your chances of converting more of them into buyers. Pay particular attention to lunch time, when store traffic can be way up, but staff lunch breaks can seriously drag down conversion rates. Associates need to eat, but customers need to be served. Matching staff schedules to traffic volume and timing in your store will help improve your chances of converting more.

3. Look for conversion leaks and plug the holes: Traffic volume and conversion rates tend to be inversely related. That is, when traffic is high, conversion tends to go down or sag. When traffic levels are low, conversion rates tend to go up. It’s not hard to understand why this happens. When the store is busy, till lines are longer and it’s harder to get help from an associate. The opposite is true when the store isn’t as busy. So, if you want to improve conversion rates, look at the traffic and conversion patterns in your store by day of week and by hour to look for when conversion rates are sagging – these sags represent the times when sales are being lost.

4. Set conversion targets by store: having goals and targets are important if you want to improve results. If you don’t have a conversion target for your store, you need to set one. It’s important to remember that every store is unique and conversion targets should be set uniquely by store. One store might be doing well with a 15% conversion rate while another may be underperforming even though it has a 30% conversion rate. The trick is to move your own conversion rate up relative to your store’s performance.

5. Make conversion a team sport: it takes the collective effort of all staff to help turn prospects into buyers. From the cashiers and sales associates to the merchandisers – everyone in the store plays a role. So don’t think of conversion as merely some business metric, but rather a simple measure of how well the whole store is doing at helping people buy. A good way to help improve conversion is to ensure all your staff understands what conversion is and that each of them helps influence it. Ask your staff about why they think people don’t buy and what the store can do to improve conversion rate. Discuss targets, get them to buy-in and share results. Get them excited about moving the conversion needle and you will significantly improve your chances of actually doing it.

Looking for a speaker on marketing, a marketing mentor or help with marketing? Enquire here.