Marketers' Key to Success: "Always-On' Interactivity, Updated Content: Forrester

In our increasingly interactive world, the divide between marketers and publishers is disappearing. So suggests Sean Corcoran, senior analyst at Forrester, in a new report -- which warns that marketers must adapt to this new reality or die.

In this new media landscape, "Interactive marketers must act like interactive publishers, distributing content while managing always-on interactions with customers across earned, owned, and paid media," according to Corcoran.

To do so, Corcoran believes that marketers must create centralized plans, and responsive processes that encourage greater customer interactivity.

"Through social media marketing, interactive marketers have learned that engaging advocates and detractors through social applications is the key to success," Corcoran explains. "But just reacting to earned media is not enough."

Through various channels -- including Web sites, blogs, apps, and social networks -- it's up to marketers to regularly update content to ensure long-term consumer relationships.

Along these lines, Corcoran commends Hilton Garden Inn for engendering Facebook user loyalty by offering Hilton Honors points to those who "like" it on the social network.

Bigger picture -- people are devouring more media than ever before. According to a recent study by Arbitron and Edison Research, U.S. consumers are spending 1 hour and 21 minutes more time per day consuming media than they did just 10 years ago.

Still, "while dialogue with customers is great, content is more readily sharable than a conversation," according to Corcoran.

Content also feeds search engine results, Corcoran points out. "Content enables search, which drives traffic and sales." It's therefore up to marketers to keep content top of mind.

Yet, as Corcoran notes, few interactive marketers are prepared to continuously publish and respond to content of any shape or size. He thus advocates shifting their approach and budgets toward quicker response across many touchpoints.

"This requires flexibility and seamless interaction across teams," Corcoran adds. Alas, as he concedes, this is unrealistic today with less than one-quarter of interactive marketers believing they have a good, cooperative relationship with other parts of marketing and sales teams.

5 comments about "Marketers' Key to Success: "Always-On' Interactivity, Updated Content: Forrester".
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  1. Sean Corcoran from Forre, August 19, 2011 at 10:40 a.m.

    Thanks for writing about the research Gavin. For more detail, here's our blog post: http://blogs.forrester.com/sean_corcoran/11-08-19-content_the_engine_of_social_media_marketing

  2. Mark Burrell from Tongal, August 19, 2011 at 4:01 p.m.

    Couldn't agree more! spot on.

  3. Optify Inc. from Optify, August 19, 2011 at 7:25 p.m.

    Great article! We definitely agree with the idea that marketers must focus on content and understand the interactive nature of content distribution today. We've seen marketers becoming more like publishers, as well as publishers becoming more like marketers. Compelling content is key and marketers and publishers alike need to create integrated campaigns which take into account, earned, paid, and social media as part of their distribution strategy. In today's world, marketers can gain a sizable advantage in the marketplace by making their content easily shareable and using a seamless integrated solution to manage and measure effectiveness of their distributed content in real time.

  4. Steve Patrizi from Pinterest, August 19, 2011 at 9:11 p.m.

    This is certainly consistent with what we're hearing from publishers and marketers - the trick is, it's a non-trivial effort to sustainably engage your audiences. At Bunchball, we're helping businesses use game mechanics to build online loyalty programs - hotels and airlines have known for years that if you offer rewards and status to loyal customers, they'll choose to stay at your property or fly your airline over others. That same principle can be applied to online experiences. If you're interested in hearing more, check us out at www.bunchball.com.

  5. Grant Crowell from ReelSEO.com, August 23, 2011 at 12:51 p.m.

    Do you think all of these recommendations could be consistently applied with the print media industry, particularly with newspapers and magazines? It seems like those are the industries in the publishing space that are having the biggest challenges with monetization, and seem to still employ a walled-garden mentality over multi-channel marketing and content distribution, aka "transmedia."

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