'Digital marketing' to become just 'marketing' in 2013
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Digital is set to lose its prefix and just be referred to as “marketing” this year as all marketers’ output will become “inherently digital” over the coming months, Forrester predicts.
The research company forecasts that digital budgets will become 20 per cent of the total, accounting for about $50bn (£31bn) worldwide.
It predicts the momentum of digital disruption will continue to grow across all verticals in 2013 – such as healthcare providers being challenged by personal tracking devices, broadcasters threatened by the likes of YouTube and banking platforms competing with new services such as Square.
Forrester’s “Trends for the B2C CMO to watch in 2013” report warns these disruptors threaten to challenge all businesses if marketers do not expand the utility and value of the experience their brands deliver.
The report, compiled by Forrester’s CMO and market leadership professionals analyst Corinne Munchbach, advises CMOs to work across departments and with executive peers to assess their digital readiness and identify where messages, actions and products can be improved by digital.
Munchbach advises marketers to use surplus budget at the end of the fiscal year or tie funding for new projects to positive business results to ensure their companies commit funding to innovation projects.
Budget should also be reorganised out of channel silos and into new cross-platform teams organised around consumer segments, with experts on the relevant media, channels and devices for that particular vertical, Muchbach says.
The report also advises marketers to maintain a shared “centre of excellence” for broader campaigns to help achieve scale for overlapping initiatives and to establish a multifunctional group from the marketing, R&D, IT and operations divisions to track how digital elevates their parts of the business to improve the brand experience for consumers.
In the UK, online and mobile ad spend increased 13 per cent to £2.6bn in the first half of 2012, according to the IAB and PwCs advertising expenditure report.
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Readers' comments (48)
Dave | Fri, 11 Jan 2013 6:09 pm
Are we talking about advertising or marketing.
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Tina Wascovich | Sat, 12 Jan 2013 5:33 pm
Relevant discussion, I agree with trend. Broadly stated, Marketing is many things, a tool to strategize about your business and determine who you are to customers, what unique (product/ service/ problem/need) do you provide to your customer and how do you communicate that offer to them. Within the marketing discipline there is a structure, process, people and tools...In the end, how a company determines to structure or title the (pieces/parts) will be most relevant when they keep the customer and not the organization in mind.
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Alauddin H Hemraj | Sun, 13 Jan 2013 1:54 pm
I feel there is a great advantage in the points
raised by the initiator, but Jonathan Bass's comments are certainly worth studying.
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Bob Quaglia | Sun, 13 Jan 2013 3:52 pm
J. Bass - do you have a blog I can follow?
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Zoe Buckingham | Mon, 14 Jan 2013 1:00 pm
Good points raised above. However, digital strategies require a very high level of training and experience. Are all marketing directors ready for the challenge?
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Tom Beakbane | Mon, 14 Jan 2013 3:47 pm
Marketers are naturally territorial, I suppose. "Digital media experts" are different to "direct mail" experts and so on – however what is undeniable is that digital tools are infusing EVERY aspect of marketing. And the best way to achieve success is to integrate communication together and also recognize that sales and marketing run on a continuum. See integratedbrands.org for hundreds of case studies that prove this point.
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Rob Booth | Mon, 14 Jan 2013 4:14 pm
Glad to see Forrester's prediction - I mentioned this in my SocialMediaToday.com post last October about avoiding BDD 'buzzword drowning death.' http://socialmediatoday.com/boothyboy/926026/3-suggestions-avoid-bdd-buzzword-drowning-death
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Joanna Vaiou SEO Director | Mon, 14 Jan 2013 7:09 pm
It is funny how there are still so many businesses that know so little about how important it is to have a digital presence. Online marketing is a multi-dimensional process and requires time and the smooth cooperation and mutual understanding of many departments in an organization. This is usually very challenging especially because each department sees things its own way.
The CFO will worry about his ROI from investing in online new media, the IT Dep will worry about the work that will need to be done in the source code of the website and so forth.
It ain't no lie. the world of businesses is becoming digitalized and along with the offline and traditional ways of building a business, it is an essential combination to achieve maximum results.
To the digital world evolution! To all these that have yet to come!
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Anonymous | Mon, 14 Jan 2013 7:32 pm
Agree with Lauren and practice the same way.
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Diane | Tue, 15 Jan 2013 3:19 am
I doubt that you will convince the baby boomers who hold much of the disposable income that digital marketing is marketing. For these folks, marketing comes in many forms, all of which lead to profit for the marketers and the companies represented.
Facebook is still struggling with profitable digital marketing. The bulk of followers are minors with limited spending capability.
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