Interactive marketing has proven itself to be one of the most disruptive and powerful marketing approaches of the past few decades, managing to turn centuries-old and established media and agency models completely upside down, and showing an ability to grow digital properties into some of the largest businesses in the globe. Currently, interactive marketing makes up for 15% of all advertising spending in the world.
Where is Interactive Marketing Heading?
1. Interactive Marketing Will Focus on Relationships Instead of Media
The future of interactive marketing relies mostly on building and nurturing collaborative relationships with customers instead of relying solely on online campaigns. This differentiates Interactive marketing from online marketing, despite the fact that they both depend heavily on the Internet as a means of building connections.
2. Interactive Marketing Will Alter Life as We Know It
Describing Interactive marketing as a disruptive approach is not hyperbole. It has the potential to alter the ways in which we communicate and make purchase decisions.
Right now, various interactive tools are already in the process of transforming education, industry, and government. For instance, interactivity has had an effect on children’s ability to multitask and their short attention spans, which prompted educational institutions to devise new teaching methods. We are now familiar with how major social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube continue to be instrumental in inciting and organizing various uprisings around the world.
3. Interactivity Will Penetrate All Media
The rise of interactivity has given consumers more control over their consumption of media. They can now skip commercials that they are not willing to sit through. They can record shows and watch them when they have the time, instead of being glued to their couch at a specific time just to follow their favorite show. Digital TV is now in the process of giving them even more control, with viewers even now having control of camera angles during sporting events.
Current Interactive Marketing Structures and the Future of Interactivity
Right now, many interactive teams are not really ready for the future of Interactivity, as they only execute campaigns via digital media instead of using interactivity to facilitate a whole new business model. This is because they are still constrained by the following:
1. Limited Budget and Manpower
While interactive headcount has already grown since 2008, around 30% of large firms still have less than 20 interactive staff members. The funding is equally dismal, with big brands only allotting 2% of media spending to interactive channels, which is a shame because consumers log a third of their media hours online.
2. Organizational Silos
In a way, this is an hindrance to many new innovations in the age of information, as organizations still rely on specific departments that have very limited collaboration with each other. This will simply not do in the age of Interactive Marketing. Creative and production may be separate from Interactive marketing, but they need to be part of the planning process in order to ensure that the campaigns will run smoothly and will be able to take full advantage of each department’s strengths.
Balancing User and Business Goals
One of the core tenets of Interactive Marketing is that it allows organizations to find the sweet spot between the needs of a user and the goals of the organization. For instance, Nike allows users to pick the color, logo, and size of several of their products. This gives customers a lot of freedom to choose a product that would suit their needs, but their choices are still constrained to the manufacturing abilities of Nike, so they won’t be able to create something that’s too much of a hassle to manufacture. There’s no way they can suddenly create a Nike flip flops.
Interactive Marketing Will Eliminate Barriers to Fast Reaction
One of the key hindrances to building a good customer-business relationship in the past is the lack of fast reaction. Communication between a business and its customers usually have to go through various channels and gets delayed to the point of irrelevance.
There are new interactive tools that help marketers receive feedback from customers and respond in realtime. The benefits also extend to internal operations, as various employees and departments can collaborate in realtime instead of wasting too much time on setting up meetings and conferences.
Interactive Marketing Will Change the World
It may seem like hyperbole, but Interactive Marketing will literally change the world, as it will result in innovations that have effects that extend well beyond marketing, as it is able to change the nature of business itself and society as we know it.
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“The future of interactive marketing relies mostly on building and nurturing collaborative relationships with customers instead of relying solely on online campaigns.” I can’t agree with you more. Today’s marketing heavily depends on the relationships we create with our customers – not on the message we are trying to convey in our marketing campaigns. I have a favorite quote from Henry Ford that can be applied to this. “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” This is so much true, especially in today’s world. No one is going to honor you just, because of the things you say you are going to do. You can only be respected for what you’ve already done.
Nicely put Anne! Intent can excite but application is what extends loyalty from customers and hopefully become brand advocates.
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