A Marketing-Led Recovery

It's been a little while since our last post, perhaps a function of increased activity in the marketing sector - specifically the digital and direct marketing sector - over the last couple of months. It provides food for thought - are people turning to more accountable methods of marketing because of the GFC, or is it simply a continuation of the trend of the last few years? Logical thinking dictates that remaining visible in a time when everyone else is slashing budgets, means cut-through should improve. But the age old question is where to direct our efforts?

Recent consumer preference research from Open Mind showed consumers still prefer to receive marketing information via personalised direct means over any other form. Email was the big improver since the benchmark version of the study in 2003, with newspapers and television showing the most rapid decline.

The study, commissioned by Australia Post, supports a move towards information-based marketing at the expense of broadcast media. Perhaps not surprising given the sponsor, but the research group and its methodology is well regarded, and it importantly offers the comparative benchmark against the same survey framework from five years ago. Trends + Statistics = Guidance.

So at the risk of sounding self-serving (being in the information-based marketing industry and all...) I'll sign off for now, but with Marketing Week coming up and a recent lecture by MercerBell principal Nic Mercer reinforcing the issue (150 marketing bods at a breakfast in Radelaide - who would have thought?!) it seems like a topic that's not going away any time soon.