Hello Everyone,

We have attended the Technology for Marketing & Advertising show (TFM&A) in London last week. The show offered industry developments and seminars in the following functions:

• Digital Marketing
• CRM & Campaign Management Software
• Data & Marketing Analytics
• Content Management & eCommerce
• Online Advertising & Social Media
• DM Solutions

Some of the interesting findings were:

• Customers are beginning to lose interest due to an overload of information. Marketers need to start thinking differently.
• Push and pull marketing is no longer the right way to operate. We need to consider sideways marketing (conversations between consumers).
• Mail used to be considered the future of DM, but spam has helped cause its demise. Digital marketing could now be the future of DM.
• Consumers spend 5% on search and 95% at the destination.
• Over 10% of internet visits go to a social network site.
• 1 in every 7 pageviews is Facebook with an average page time of 30min. Facebook is gradually surpassing Google in pageviews and from December it started to dominate the market.
• 2 in every 5 traffic retailers receive are from search
• 10% increase in Internet users in 2009 and 80% of the UK is now online with 40 million people now using the Internet, 16 million of which on their mobiles.
• Purchase intent is increased by 8% if it’s on the first page of both PPC and SEO
• Companies involved in social media rose from 8% to 13% in 2008. Websites are no longer the core business of digital. Search marketing should drive towards the customer independently, wherever they are. A deeper integration between within social media is required since they represent a b-directional communication system.
• 46% of companies spend at least 10k on SEO per annum.
• Money is shifting from traditional to online.
• 24% of overall marketing spend is digital.
• According to eConsultancy 70% of companies plan to increase their 2010 social media budgets.
• Video marketing is the new borderline for success. YouTube ads represent a new way to get people involved with advertising because it changes the way content is served, it is requested and not imposed, maximizing the results. A traditional TV spot is seen as an intruder.