Posted By
Jamie Beckland on 07/30/2010
In the
middle of gorgeous, sunny days, it’s tough to sit down and think about the
cold, dark days of January, when you’ll start implementing 2011 plans. But now,
in the dog days of summer, it’s time to think about how your marketing campaigns
should shift next year.
Typically,
annual planning starts with media plans that incorporate 1%-3% improvements.
But in 2011, planning for just incremental marketing improvements is a risky
proposition. Forrester Research predicts a 34% increase in social media marketing budgets. That means your competitors are planning transformational
marketing initiatives; they are using social media marketing to take their
messages directly to their customers and are building relationships. So, it’s
more important than ever to give up some of your control to your customers or
risk losing market share and even revenue.
And
there are proven ways to stretch your messaging further, connect with
customers, and crank up the performance of your 2011 campaign. Allocating
dedicated social media marketing dollars is important. But you don’t have to
take large creative risks in social media; you can leverage past successes and
campaign concepts in new and creative ways.
Integrating
social media adds only incremental cost to your existing TV and print campaigns—and
those costs can be pulled from existing campaign budgets without any adverse
impact. An integrated marketing planning process allows you to extend the reach
of TV and print in a way that is relevant for customers.
But it’s
only effective if you integrate the digital team from the start. The strongest
ideas have social components baked into them from the conceptual stage. When
Creatives are thinking about virality, pass-along, and sharing potential, knowing
that social components are part of the scope leads them to create more
extensible and configurable traditional campaigns.
So, 2011
is the time to integrate your offline and online marketing more than ever.
Challenge your agency partners to work together like never before. All-agency
summits are a great way to lay out this new reality: customers don’t
distinguish their online and offline lives—so campaigns can’t either. When
White Horse has integrated efforts with other agency partners, we have found
ways to bring additional success to every campaign.
Integrating
your 2011 campaign planning with your online and offline teams does take slightly
more effort at the outset. But the results from using social media
to support traditional advertising are outsized compared to the investment. So,
with the benefits of extending your reach and improving your results, why not
make social
media a critical part of your 2011 marketing planning conversations?
Tags: Web Promotions, Social Networks, Media Planning & Buying, Rich Media Advertising, Display Advertising
Comments (0)
