Just found this release from the Society for Conversational Marketing which states that spending on social media and conversational marketing will outpace that of traditional marketing by 2012.
I’m not sure how this can be true, but what if it is?
If you have only 5 years left to live (doing things the old way), how will you choose to behave in the short term?
The study involved PR and marketing communications professionals’ awareness and knowledge of social media and conversational marketing and their priorities for including it in their strategies and initiatives. Clearly the world won’t change over night, but 5 years ain’t that long to topple 60+ years of mass media momentum.
Predictions are only worth the paper they’re printed on (and this prediction was digital), but still…
The findings of the study indicate that while social media adoption is still very much in its infancy, communications professionals foresee significant growth in adoption and spending over the next five years, and predict that conversational marketing will outpace traditional marketing by 2012.
Of the 260 respondents:
* 70% are currently spending 2.5% or less of their communications budgets on conversational marketing
* Two-thirds plan to increase their investment in conversation within the next twelve months
* 57% project that in five years they will be spending more on conversational marketing than traditional marketing
* 23.8% believe that spending on conversational marketing will be the same as traditional marketing in five years
In total, 81% of all respondents project that by 2012 they will spend at least as much on conversational marketing as traditional marketing.
I suppose it all depends on who the marketers & audiences are, and what products/services they’re trying to market. B2B marketing of commodities would probably not benefit from social marketing. After all, how much time can you actually spend talking about envelopes/copper wire/plastic bottles/ballpoint pens?
“Yo dude, check out our hot new video on YouTube where we talk about the bleeding edge technology on ballpoint pens. Click the special link to receive a 5% discount on your next 12 gross order.”
I just don’t see it for some industries.
I agree. If you sell something that isn’t special, then creating content will not help very much.
However, since selling pens would be a really boring job, perhaps the seller of pens needs to blog about something else…like business process outsourcing or (better yet) his personal hobby, like bass fishing. At least then he has a chance to meet other bass fisherman, all of whom use pens and some of whom buy and specifiy pens.
After all, if you can buy your pens from a guy you like or a guy you don’t…then who gets your pen business??
That’s the point exactly Pat. I’ve been watching Realtors using blogs to create conversations with prospective buyers and sellers, seems to be working well for those in the know.