Though it is generally believed that seniors are not online, a report by Focalyst and Dynamic Logic, titled “Matures 62+ On the Internet: An Overlooked Audience”, finds that seniors spend an average of 44 minutes a day online. This demographic is very important to marketers, especially those in the Pharmaceutical and Insurance industries which are indenitified as the top categories that they are most engaged in.
The author of the book The Art of War, Sun Tzu, once said, “Every battle is won before it’s fought.” With everyone talking about the recession and rising gas prices, it seems that businesses will have to do “battle” in order to get through this downturn. In my last blog entry, “Recession: Blessing in Disguise?” I talked about the MarketingSherpa report and how businesses can leverage online marketing during these uncertain times. However, that report has a second part which talks about strategies that marketers are using to get through the slump. In this blog post, I’m going to talk about those strategies, plus add some data from eMarketer that backs them up. This post will explain how local businesses can use these strategies to their advantage. It can be your “business battle plan” if you will. (more…)
Interactive Marketing may be getting a facelift this year according to MediaPost’s “Metrics are the New Black” article. According to a recent Forrester Research Survey, interactive channels are expected to be more effective at “delivering on every marketing goal including selling products or services online, driving traffic to a Web site, generating leads and, most importantly, building relationships and loyalty.” The survey also shows that the biggest difference between online and traditional marketing is the availabilty of key performance metrics that are not as accessible offline. However, the tried and true click-through-rate (CTR) may be too simplistic already. Marketers are now focusing on evaluating higher-level metrics–customer engagement, time spent and interaction rates, overall brand sentiment, and true brand conversions on the Web.
In the past, we’ve written about speculation of a recession and how the current state of the economy will affect online marketing. Luckily for us, MarketingSherpa came out with a report, titled, “Marketing During a Downturn” that sheds light onto how marketers are feeling the effects of the economy and what they are doing about it. Because online marketing was barely around during the last recession, there is little research detailing the affects on the industry. This study provides some good insight on what is happening now in many companies’ marketing departments and what they plan to do in the forthcoming months. (more…)
I read with interest the Wall Street Journal’s article this week, “More Gloom in Newspaper Ad Sales” – in the online edition, of course. Online media and Internet-based search continue to grow at the expense of their offline counterparts, newspapers and magazines. (more…)