Mobile marketing to impact spending by 2015

MUMBAI, INDIA: A digital marketing approach and its associated channels are critical for overcoming the declining effectiveness of mass marketing, according to research firm Gartner, Inc.

Although marketers have been using digital channels as part of their campaign management strategies for more than 10 years, most are using them for traditional push, mass-marketed, interruption-type execution of campaigns, said a press release.

"Mass marketing is no longer a long-term strategy. Mass-marketing campaigns have a two per cent response rate and are on the decline, whereas by 2015, digital strategies such as social and mobile marketing will influence at least 80 per cent of consumers' discretionary spending," warned Adam Sarner, research director at Gartner.

He added that marketers still need to shift their traditional campaign management strategy around executing campaigns to a customer and move toward a digital marketing, two-way engagement approach.

Sarner added that activity on the Internet has shifted back to its roots in interaction and participation. The hard sell isn't working in the new environment. The successful campaign management strategies have shifted from interruptive push, toward two-way conversations and addressing mutually beneficial approaches to customers' wants and needs, which a digital marketing approach can provide.

The online environment continues to expand and marketing organizations have more opportunities to be effective.

By 2014, as many as 6.7 billion devices will be connected to the Internet. Mobile marketing in the U.S. reached $877.2 million in 2010, up 138 per cent from the $368 million spent in 2009. The developing social CRM application market reached $600 million in 2010, and it is expected to reach $1 billion by 2013.

"For marketers and campaign management to use digital channels effectively, these channels can't be just a port for traditional campaign methods," said Sarner.