5 Digital Retail Takeaways from Forrester’s Interactive Marketing Forecast
by Andrew SirotnikWednesday, January 6th, 2010
I finally got a chance to read Forrester’s “US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 – 2014”> (being trapped on planes does have its benefits). Overall there were no big surprises that differed from what we’ve all experienced anecdotally over the last five years: the shift to digital and the focus on experiences continues to build momentum. The usual notables:
- Consumers expect and value interactive branded experiences and punish those who don’t deliver
- Marketing groups are emerging as “strategic leaders” within their organizations (i.e. setting strategy vs. merely executing)
- Interactive marketing’s effectiveness is universally proven and acknowledged and marketing spend is shifting accordingly
Though we’ve seen the above in many articles recently about digital agencies taking the lead, I recommend reading this study for the interesting (occasionally surprising) details embedded in the research. My short list:
Search marketing will dominate because of consumers.
Evolving consumer behavior = more inventory to sell. Think longer multi-word search phrases vs. keywords of the days of yore. Equally important is the rapid adoption of consumers searching on mobile = more volume. All this demand begets more search engines and more innovation in advanced tools for marketers.
Social media will overtake email marketing.
It was no surprise to see social media as the fastest growing digital marketing category (projected 34% compound annual growth rate in spend). What surprised me though was the projection that social media spend would catch up with email marketing spend within two years (projected $1.6B in 2012) and then effectively double in the two years to follow (projected $3.1B in 2014).
Mobile app consolidation.
It was equally no surprise to see mobile marketing as one of the fasted growing categories (projected 27% CAGR). What was interesting is the prediction of fewer applications that are more strategically founded, better targeted, and more meaningful to the consumer. Expect some backlash and a correction from paralyzing consumers with 40,000 + micro-apps, many of which are not built on meaningful ideas.
5 takeaways for what this means for digital retailers and brands forging direct relationships with their consumers:
1. Business-as-usual is a dead notion.
Successful brands will look inwardly both critically and creatively to continually re-structure themselves and their budgets in alignment with consumer behavior
2. Better understanding your consumers.
Personas of even two years ago need to evolve to better capture evolved and divergent consumer behavior patterns and their digital lifestyles.
3. Mobile shopping is now standard best practice.
The holiday reports of consumers price-comparing in store armed with mobile scanning and searching apps shows a rapidly evolved digital behavior that will only grow. Whether or not retailers expect a direct ROI from developing mobile site and app experiences, the savvy ones will consider them standard elements of their ecommerce foundations.
4. Embracing the shopping funnel as a (not necessarily linear) consumer journey.
The brands that win will take a multi-faceted approach to delivering meaningful shopping experiences where consumers wish to spend their time. Consumers in turn will connect with brands and products but on their own terms. It’s no longer (only) about the fewest clicks to cart or conversion per visit.
5. It’s not about mobile or social media – it’s about ideas worth talking about
(credit: Amy Lanigan, colleague at Fluid @lanigan). Retailers will need to shift from “we need to do something on facebook” to spending more time developing winning strategies that can be executed context-appropriately across channels.
