What channels do marketers think are important? Which do they think are good? What new technologies are they focused on? And how are they getting to grips with Social Media?
This was the theme of a webinar I participated in last week, hosted by Marketing Week (the leading marketing publication in the UK). The webinar was based on an annual survey that SAS and Marketing Week have conducted for the lasts three years, the results of which can be downloaded here. I was joined in the webinar by Dr Emma Macdonald of Cranfield School of Management, and Crispin Westhead, Head of CRM at the magazine Which, and we had a lively and interesting discussion on the results of the research.
I won’t go through the content of the webinar in detail, if you wish to find out about that I would encourage you to read the report and listen to the webinar. However, a number of strong themes did emerge.
- Marketing budgets continue to shift towards new media channels, with ever fewer organisations relying on traditional channels
- Whilst marketers are good at applying their traditional skills to new media, they are less confident in using the new capabilities that these channels present
- Social Media has moved from being a relative novelty to broad application over the last 3 years, but marketers are extremely unsure of how to use it effectively
- Mobile marketing for so many years in the doldrums is beginning to take off again
Over the course of the webinar viewers were able to text in questions to the panel. Unfortunately we did not have the time to answer all these questions during the webinar, but it is my hope over the following few weeks to address some of the questions asked, and indeed if the research and webinar prompts any questions in your minds, please feel free to post them on the blog.
