Are Results Part of Your Marketing Plan?
We’re well into another year. And if you’re responsible in any way for marketing within your business, it’s the time to finally embrace today’s new marketing model as part of your plan. In order to properly capture data and protect one’s investment in marketing, a skillful blend of both digital and traditional marketing methods will be required.
It’s no surprise that the increase in new channels and technologies have dramatically changed marketing. Yet the speed in which this is taking place continues to increase. In order to keep up, companies now need to leverage the full scope of their marketing capabilities and analyze the results so that proper targets can be identified, the correct resources allocated, and marketing budgets are controlled. Without doing so, marketing efforts could generate nothing more than noise and expense rather than promotion and profits.
According to a Chief Marketer Poll, over half of marketers expect their budgets to increase in this new year, but many still don’t feel they are optimizing their marketing strategies…in particular, digital strategies. While Business to Business (B2B) brands tend to use metrics such as return on investment (ROI), Business to Consumer (B2C) marketers have traditionally used key performance indicators (KPI’s) to gauge the success of their marketing.
We consider the increase of digital strategies a blessing. It has clearly unveiled the importance of our mission as marketers: to build data for future sales and reduce wasted spend. Yet many companies continue to feel threatened by digital marketing strategies. This is to be expected. After all, it’s difficult to allocate internal resources with all the necessary skills required to keep up with the constant updates and new technologies evolving in marketing. Additionally, building a marketing structure in a way that interacts with other business functions, as well as traditional marketing elements, can be a real challenge due to the constant demands of daily business.
Today there are new competencies and capabilities required when marketing. Expertise such as data development and analytics, customer experience, content, multichannel and personalization are seldom properly understood, nor being met. Although we all acknowledge this change in the marketing industry, it’s been challenging for businesses to reflect this change within their company structure.
We invite you to embrace change and collaborate this year. Bring marketing to the table when identifying target markets. This will help ensure that the necessary competencies and capabilities are addressed in creating an efficient, effective plan for your marketing strategy. Help your team function within your company in an effort to improve how marketing works both within itself and with other business functions within the company. Don’t hesitate to contact us should you have questions. We’re here to help your company realize the full potential of your marketing.
Why Mobile Optimization is Critical
PEW research now reports a growing share of Americans now use smartphones as their primary means of online access at home. Today one-in-five American adults are “smartphone-only” internet users – meaning they own a smartphone, but do not have traditional home broadband service.
In addition, Deloitte’s recent mobile consumer survey proves how older Americans are catching up in terms of smartphone penetration in the US. Adults over the age of 55 are now the fastest-growing smartphone ownership group. Statistics have jumped from 67% in 2017 to 74% today.
The B2B customer journey is typically lengthy with a longer research phase. Information gathering takes place 24/7 and mobile optimized practices are necessary to improve customer communications and efficiently spread them across different channels such as a company’s website, landing pages, siru mobile casinos, emails and social media. Knowing your customer, and how they fit into your marketing and communications strategy will help improve conversions and enhance efficiency.
As you continue planning for your 2019 strategies, gather and analyze data from your current website and other digital products such as email and social media to determine who your customers are and what they are looking for. This will help you to determine what types of information they prefer to receive and how they prefer to receive it while guiding you to a better mobile sales journey for your customer.
The chart below demonstrates the dramatic change in mobile use demographics.
| Empty | Any Cellphone | Smartphone | Non- Smartphone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total | 95% | 77% | 17% |
| Men | 95% | 80% | 16% |
| Women | 94% | 75% | 19% |
| Ages 18-29 | 100% | 94% | 6% |
| 30-49 | 98% | 89% | 9% |
| 50-64 | 94% | 73% | 21% |
| 65+ | 85% | 46% | 40% |
| White | 94% | 77% | 17% |
| Black | 98% | 75% | 23% |
| Hispanic | 97% | 77% | 20% |
| Less than high school graduate | 90% | 57% | 33% |
| High school graduate | 92% | 69% | 24% |
| Some college | 96% | 80% | 16% |
| College graduate | 97% | 91% | 6% |
| Less than $30,000 | 92% | 67% | 25% |
| $30,000-$49,999 | 98% | 82% | 15% |
| $50,000-$74,999 | 98% | 83% | 15% |
| $75,000+ | 98% | 93% | 5% |
| Urban | 96% | 83% | 13% |
| Suburban | 94% | 78% | 16% |
| Rural | 91% | 65% | 26% |
Source: PEW RESEARCH CENTER Survey conducted Jan. 3-10, 2018.
Onward and Upward! JMS Marketing is on the Move to a New Location.
It was 2007 when we moved from our small office on Memorial Drive in Crystal Lake to our freshly designed offices on Exchange Drive. We filled it with dreams and loads of creativity. Yet, as the ink dried on our newly signed lease, the stock market crashed. After a few years of belt-tightening, we survived the recession and continued to grow the business.
Fast forward to 2018 and it’s time for another move.
JMS Marketing will be moving to our new headquarters at The Oaks Corporate Center effective July 8, 2018. We will remain in our mid-west community of Crystal Lake, Illinois as we have found it to be an exceptional location for business and family.
From corporate contemporary to warm and welcoming. Our new office has a classic design and is nestled within stately Oak trees. It carefully blends the modern elements of a marketing agency with a comfortable traditional style featuring lots of windows for natural light and cozy fireplaces. It’s beautiful!
Our new environment will enhance the level of service we’re able to offer to our clients. It will include more office and storage space, and expanded room for our creative think tank and virtual reality demonstration area.
Being passionate about what you do, embracing innovation and having a great team around you makes the journey so worthwhile. And of course, the ultimate joy is collaborating and creating with our clients, some of who have been with us since our early years on Memorial Drive. Yes, watching our clients grow is the ultimate reward.
While the move from Exchange Drive leaves us with feelings of nostalgia, the choice to move to our new Oaks headquarters represents a continued commitment to our future.
With are grateful for the continued business and support of our clients and look forward to more adventurous years ahead!