Summary
¦ Successful companies will put innovation at their core.
¦ Social media will increase and migrate to mobile devices.
¦ QR codes will become widespread.
¦ Face-to-face communication will always prevail.
Starship Enterprise Captain’s Log: Stardate 11042.5. The latest TTJ intergalactic timber industry awards have just been announced. The best marketing award has gone to a manufacturer who used sub-retinal image transference technology to embed emotionally-manipulative brand experiences of utterly beautiful timber products into the collective mind of the Borg and other green activists in the Delta Quadrant. Sales of engineered wood products have trebled overnight. The Borg’s Facebook status now reads: “Timber is lovely, resistance is futile.”
OK, I’ll spare you the rest. Enough’s enough, even for a Trekkie.
TTJ’s editor did tell me I could “go crazy” in my views on the future of marketing and communications for the industry, but here’s a more down to earth view on what I think the trends may be next year and beyond.
And this is where I need to tell you another story – a true one this time – of someone I knew who wanted a life-changing breakthrough in her company’s market share and was prepared to put hundreds of thousands of pounds into a marketing campaign to achieve it.
The campaigns were fantastic, brand recognition shot through the roof in a matter of months, but market share stayed much the same. The reason? The market was growing faster than she was, and her products no longer had the killer competitive edge.
So my first prediction for 2011 is that when it comes to the big timber industry successes you will see organisations that put innovation at their core, promoting lower risk, most cost-effective and more intuitively clever solutions to specifiers and contractors. If you want to read a blueprint of what customers will need, I can think of no better place to start than Paul Morrell’s recently published ‘Low Carbon Construction’ IGT report.
Assuming that the products and the sales and customer service processes are top notch, how about some of the nuts and bolts of PR and marketing?
When it comes to PR and media relations, the complexity of the media landscape will continue to spell the death knell of the mass-mailed press release. And hoorah for that! It was always a blunt tool and I have never seen the point of a committee-approved piece of corporate writing sent like spam to any journalist on an industry mailing list. What matters now is what has always mattered – real relationships, so that a company’s news and views can be matched on an individual basis to each media type and reporter/blogger’s interests.
Social media is only going to get bigger and such networking will migrate more to mobile devices (especially once more young people start using smartphones and basic text messaging becomes old hat). If they’re not already, websites will need to be designed for such devices, not just viewing on PCs. Similarly, YouTube and online video will continue its inexorable rise in 2011.
There are many other geeky things that capture my attention and lend themselves to creative marketing, but it usually makes sense to wait until they become more mainstream before using them in a business-to-business context.
QR codes
One of those ‘new things’ is QR codes. These are the strange black and white pixellated bar codes that you will have started to see in magazines and TV, on signs, buses, business cards and elsewhere. Scan a QR code using a clever app or camera on your mobile and you will usually go direct to a webpage with information you may need. It may be an online video showing you how to use a product, an online brochure, a special offer – the marketing options are endless.
Of course, one of the common factors underlying the popularity of these types of digital communications is the way marketers can measure response rates very accurately and swiftly, which means an easier calculation on return on investment and better targeting of budgets. This will continue as a major issue in 2011.
The other major lesson about what underpins any sort of effective brand communication is creativity. To cut through the noise, you don’t just have to have something good to say, you also need an attention-grabbing way to say it. I’d expect to see even more creativity, wit and visual brilliance in 2011.
Having said all this, if I was down to my last £100 for marketing how would I spend it? It’s most likely that half would go on a tank of petrol and the other half on baking ingredients. This would allow me to go and see my clients and prospects, and to have a really good chat over a cuppa and a home-made chocolate brownie. Frankly, when it comes to building better business relationships, face-to-face communication is always best. Nothing else comes close.
