Marketing Managers are applying financial engineering methods to optimize their portfolio of marketing campaigns.
The growing concern from Marketing Managers about return on advertising is making them look more and more like financial managers.
Many millions are spent on advertising (in Central America about $ 1.8 billion per year), usually in a mix of different types of media and to apply expense optimization methods of portfolio investments, will lead to better rates of return on investments.
In this new breed of marketing to the “4Ps” (product, placement, price, promotion) the following been added: flow, functionality, feedback and loyalty (“4Fs” in Spanish).
The Internet, new information management tools and methodologies, combined with globalization, are redefining the way products are marketed.
A modern marketing manager must not only worry for building brand value, as it must also be killed in digital communication and have comprehensive knowledge of the industry.
Future marketingmanagers will have to speak the same language as the rest of their organization, to be able to understand how their actions fit in a larger whole.
Online video and display advertising are effective at driving significant uplift in site visitation and advertiser search queries, even in the face of minimal clicks on ads.
Fox Networks and comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, unveiled the findings of a U.K. study:
-Video and display advertising both successfully increased brand engagement in each of the four campaigns analysed. The average uplift across the campaigns saw site visitation increase by more than a factor of seven over a four week period following exposure to an ad, with consumers three times more likely to conduct search queries using brand or relevant generic terms in the same time period.
Advertising online is not an option anymore but a necessity, and requires stricter planning than traditional advertising.
Every cent spent in an advertising budget must be carefully planned. These are though times, with fierce competition in all fields. Preparing successful advertising campaigns requires a lot of work, and actions in several fronts. A balanced online marketing plan is much more than just spending some dollars on Google’s Adwords.
When digital advertising fails, do not blame the medium without analyzing if the design of the ad is in line with it.
Phillip W. Sawyer writes in an article in Advertising Age that the effectiveness of an online campaign can be seriously hampered by mistakes made by designers who do not know the specific requirements of digital communication.
Sawyer lists 7 key mistakes when designing online advertising, identified after extensive research.
Much too often, advertising designers emphasize visual appeal too much, forgetting the most important: efficiently communicating a message.
And that translates into wasting money. With the crisis forcing us to reduce costs in every front, we must demand results from our advertising investment.
Advertising on the web is not only cheaper, it is also much more effective because its impact will be known quickly and it can be changed to optimize it.
Do not spend too much time thinking about “THE big idea” for a campaign. Put different banners on the web in different shapes and sizes, in different mediums, with different ideas and concepts.
Within a week, analyze all the numbers together and find out which banners had the greatest impact. Now simply rearrange your online campaign in accordance with these results.
It is no longer just advertising. Marketing managers must operate in an integrated manner and demonstrate return on investment for every dollar they spend.
Many examples are showing that one of the first budgets to be trimmed in these times of crisis, is marketing.