| Top Marketing Trends for 2008
The Marketing Executives Networking Group, an almost 1700 member organization of leading marketers who are at a VP-level or above in their organizations, has issued the results of its first annual survey of Top Marketing Trends for 2008. The survey of MENG members, conducted by Anderson Analytics, focused on top marketing concepts, buzz words, global areas of opportunity, targeted customer demographics, as well as the books that marketers look to for inspiration and growth opportunity.
While the marketers weighed in on many marketing concepts a few key areas emerged.
Marketing basics (60 percent “Very Important”) which include specific concepts such as customer satisfaction, customer retention, segmentation, brand loyalty and ROI were of greatest interest. Interestingly, Search Engine Optimization (42 percent) had relatively wide appeal, and cut across marketers in all fields. “Green Marketing” (32 percent) was another important emerging concept and it was identified as the trendiest marketing buzzword.
In regard to Global Issues, China is viewed as the region with the best future opportunity (52 percent); India is a distant second (20 percent). Few marketers saw other regions such as Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America, Brazil, Russia, and Mexico, as comparable opportunities. In terms of another important global issue, Out-Sourcing/Off-Shoring, the majority of marketers (77 percent) reported that their companies do not off-shore any part of the marketing function. Half of senior marketers are not in favor of off-shoring any part of the marketing function, while just under a quarter view it favorably.
When asked about the most important customer demographics senior marketing executives rank Baby Boomers highest with 88 percent ranking them as either very important or somewhat important. What may be surprising is the fact that Gen X (86 percent), Hispanics (86 percent), Women (85 percent) and Gen Y (84 percent) are catching up to Boomers as customer targets.
Senior-level Marketing Executives read avidly to stay abreast of information and gain insights for their business. The most popular books are not necessarily the most recently published given that Good to Great, The World is Flat, and Blink were the top three most recently read books. In terms of all time favorite business book ever read, three in five executives were eager to make a recommendation to their fellow marketers. Topping the list were: Good to Great, Positioning, and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
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Common Interaction Channel Management Drives Uptake Service and Support Apps
The North American customer service and support (CSS) applications market continued its steady growth, spurred on by the growing notion among companies that the customer experience needs to be better managed for long-term market success. Despite saturation in the large enterprise market, the wide-open small-enterprise market, as well as the opportunity to provide a unified platform for managing all interactions channels, will spark the growth of CSS application in the coming years.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan finds that this market earned revenues of $673.6 million in 2006 and estimates this to reach $955.9 million in 2013.
Creating a common platform for tracking and managing all customer interactions, across all interaction channels, will be a key driver for growth of the North American customer service and support applications market, notes Frost & Sullivan analysts. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, customers should not hear that the contact center agent they are talking to today knows nothing about the e-mail they sent yesterday.
Consumers, particularly the younger generations, are using e-mail, chat, SMS and the telephone with equal facility. They now want their interactions with companies to use all of the same channels that they use in their personal lives. Customer service and support application vendors, therefore, must create a common platform for interactions that eradicates any interaction channel silos.
However, the market for customer service and support applications has become cluttered, with players from the worlds of customer relationship management (CRM), knowledge management, e-service and contact routing all joining the fray. To compound matters, consolidation across these various previously distinct markets has made enterprise purchasing decision much more difficult.
For customer service and support applications vendors, focusing on the broader enterprise value will help move them up the value chain and make them a more trusted partner. The sales cycles will get longer, but the value the customer derives from the deal will skyrocket.
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Online Marketers Fail to Take Advantage of Optimization Strategies
JupiterResearch has found that while simple optimization tactics are used by many brand and direct response advertisers, some effective and inexpensive optimization strategies are ignored by most marketers. Additionally, only 15 percent of advertisers use optimization technology, which can be perceived as too expensive or complex for small and emerging marketers. While more direct response advertisers are familiar with optimization technology, all advertisers benefit from improved campaign performance.
According to the JupiterResearch report "Optimization: Maximizing ROI through Cross-Tactic Optimization," many advertisers would also benefit from implementing "cross-tactic" optimization, which currently is used by very few advertisers. Cross-tactic optimization can provide a more complete picture of the ads and ad placements that were most effective across media buys and across online advertising tactics, such as search and display. Due to the complexity of implementing cross-tactic optimization, JupiterResearch recommends that advertisers work with a third party, either an agency, technology provider or network.
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Majority of U.S. Banks Have Adopted FFIEC Guidelines and Increased Self-Service
When the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) issued guidelines in late 2005 to push the U.S. banking industry toward stronger security measures for consumer online banking, the industry was exceedingly slow to respond. Today, new research from TowerGroup finds that 95 percent of U.S. banks now comply with - or are close to complying with - the FFIEC's authentication guidance.
In implementing risk-based authentication - often using a combination of device identification, IP geolocation, and challenge/response questions - banks seem to have been able to strike an appropriate balance between authentication "strength" and customer convenience. Many banks report that new authentication techniques have reduced online fraud losses while driving increases in consumer Internet banking adoption and usage. This counters early concerns that stronger authentication technology would inconvenience consumers to the point of driving online banking usage down.
Moving forward, TowerGroup advises U.S. banks to continue augmenting current risk-based authentication technologies with additional device-identifying components, especially IP intelligence data. Further, banks should implement back-end fraud detection technologies that identify transactional and behavioral anomalies, and seek out ways to share fraud data pertaining to known fraud sources across the industry. Banks cannot simply meet the current FFIEC guidance and rest on their laurels; they must continue stay ahead of the curve.
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