If 2011 was a game, it would be baseball. There haven’t been any grand slams this year, but there have been some solid hits. In the end, several companies have made enough overall progress that this year will be a win for them.
As we round third and head for home, I want to look back on what was done particularly well this year. Here are three winning marketing strategies of 2011 and how they will be improved in 2012.
1) In 2011, more companies have embraced inbound marketing than ever before. This means tactics that will bring customers to them (SEO, content marketing) instead of purely outbound approaches (email campaigns, banner ads). For example, there has definitely been a plethora of ebook offers this year, most of which have been informative and added value. This is a positive trend, which we are sure to see more of.
2012 PREDICTION #1: The most successful companies will build programs that leverage both outbound and inbound marketing. They will integrate these programs so they feed off each other and move prospects through the sales process.
2) There seemed to be an increase in user conferences this year. Although user conferences are a great way to turn users into evangelists, having an event isn’t enough. Over the last three months, I’ve watched several unfold. The best by far was Mashery’s Business of APIs Conference, which I attended in San Francisco in September. What made Mashery’s event superior?
- A half-day event and a networking reception. Why have it longer if everything can fit into four hours?
- Program of customers and industry experts
- Program meets the audience demographics. The San Francisco, London and NYC events were more business-focused or developer-focused depending on their registered attendees.
- Conference hashtag and free WiFi were listed on programs
- Behind the audience was a raised platform where several people from Mashery tweeted throughout the event about comments presenters where making as they happened. Audience members then retweeted and commented on the tweets in real-time or wrote their own tweets. This wasn’t directed, but because the hashtag and free WiFi were available, it happened organically.
- Most importantly, the event wasn’t an advertisement for the company. It focused on the value of making APIs available or developing with other company’s APIs. In other words, the information presented was actually valuable to the audience.
These details add up to a more engaged audience. This flowed into a much more visible social media presence, which went on for days after each event. If you search #BAPI on Twitter, you’ll see some of what I’m describing.
2012 PREDICTION #2: More companies will stage user day events. Many of these will be considered successful purely based on whether people attend. This is the wrong measurement. You can always get people to fill a room. User events should be measured on a more strategic goal, such as increasing brand visibility, converting leads in the pipeline to signed deals quicker, etc.
3) It may be because of economic fears, but there was more talk this year about measuring marketing value than in the past. This seems to be for two reasons: first, there are more SaaS tools for marketing and each has a measurement function or dashboard to “prove” its value; and second, with limited budgets, there is more scrutiny of each dollar spent. It makes sense that if companies are using CRM systems to track the sales process, they should also be examining what marketing is contributing.
2012 PREDICTION #3: This is more of a hope than a prediction. I predict/hope that measurement of marketing activities becomes more refined. As I’ve written about again and again, it is important that companies measure the right areas. It is fine to measure raw leads, but in the end, marketing lead gen and demand gen efforts should be judged on the number of leads that convert to opportunities and projected revenue from marketing activities that appear in the company’s pipeline. This doesn’t discount the use of marketing for branding. That should also be measured. But if you are going to measure lead gen and demand gen, projected opportunities is the place to do this.
In addition to these three marketing trends, the other business trends seem likely to continue to evolve in 2012 are:
- The use of social media for customer service – both for consumer and B2B businesses. Very technical B2B companies are already starting to do this, but in 2012 we’ll see this increase in mainstream businesses. It is no longer about being “liked.”
- More companies will see the value of making their API available. They will understand it is about being where the customer is, not trying to get the customer to come to them.
- Conversely, hopefully by the end of 2012, companies that have a business based on use of their API will understand they need more than a developer channel to grow significant revenue.
- Multinational will no longer mean “the world’s largest companies.” More companies will be expanding into new regions. The most successful of these will understand the need to localize marketing and sometimes their business model as well.
- More companies, large and small, will embrace an integrated marketing approach that has all aspects of marketing supporting each other.
For all the talk of economic woes, 2011 has actually been a good year for business. It has been a developmental year for many companies. We are entering 2012 with a lot of promise. I’m looking forward to continuing the game.
