It’s good to know to be on top of the trends in the field of online marketing and especially in tech industry where everything is going so fast. Even if you are not in the tech industry it’s good to stay informed. If only to provoke some thoughts and reflect on your own (email) marketing strategy and tactics.
Focus.com released the Tech marketers Handbook with insights from real experts, each in their own specialism. It’s a good read. So what are the Key trends according to the Handbook?
Some of the experts that contributed:
Michael Brenner, Sr. Director SAP (@BrennerMichael)
Stefan Eyram, Clickmail marketing (@stefaneyram)
Loren McDonald, VP, Industry Relations, Silverpop (@lorenmcdonald)
Chad Horenfeldt, Director, Customer Success, Eloqua (@chadhorenfeldt)
Len Shneyder, Sr. Product Marketing Mgr, IBM (@lenshneyder)
Jim Ducharme, Community Manager, GetResponse (@hugeheadca)
And me, Jordie van Rijn, email marketing consultant, EmailMonday (@jvanrijn) :)
Scroll down for a downloadlink to the complete Handbook.
5 Key Findings from the Technology marketers Handbook
The handbook starts off with a list of 10 findings and Email marketing Predictions to watch for, we picked 5 of the most interesting ones…
1. The return of strategic marketing
Technology marketers have focused the vast majority of their recent efforts on tactics and execution, often at the expense of strategic marketing efforts. This year, marketers will realize that all of the hot tactics du jour, such as inbound marketing and demand generation, can benefit immensely from a little strategic marketing, particularly in the area of positioning. The fastest growing technology vendors share one common marketing characteristic – they’ve created a strong, memorable position in the mind of their customers.
2. Sales and marketing misalignment
There’s no issue that receives more attention in technology marketing than sales and marketing alignment. In spite of all the punditry, time, and money that has been thrown at the alignment problem, most IT vendors have failed to make meaningful progress on this issue. That won’t change this year. In fact, this year many vendors will punt on alignment and have marketing move slightly back up the funnel.
3. Customer powered marketing
Buyers want to hear from their peers when it comes to evaluating technology products and services. Marketers will use their existing customers (and prospects for that matter) to help create marketing and sales experiences for prospective customers. This will take the form of legacy collateral such as case studies, but will also take the form of innovative experiences such as real time, peer-powered Q&A.
4. Return of 1:1 marketing
In the enterprise segment in particular, look for a return of hyper-targeted, one to one, outbound marketing. Technology marketers will reacquaint themselves with the value of email marketing in creating deep, substantive relationships with decision-makers at big companies. Targeted account list building, appointment setting, highly produced media experiences, and multi-touch campaigns will all play major roles here.
5. Shelfware everywhere
Marketing organizations have been spending record amounts on technology the last couple of years. What’s not clear is how much this technology is actually being used and whether marketers are seeing real ROI. Given the fact that most marketing organizations are long on budget and short on people, it should come as no surprise that there are a lot of “shelfware” rumors floating around out there.
Other trends to watch…
Other trends to watch: the decline of infographics; whatever happened to Klout; innovative case study formats; the rise of experience designers; exclusive peer groups; the cloud meme continues, attention scarcity dominates, B2B storytelling…
