• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, January 30, 2014

Sometimes the campaign falters because brands don't have the resources needed to succeed with hyperlocal personalized marketing, though the trend keeps growing.

The white paper -- published by the Path to Purchase Institute, a global association serving the needs of retailers and brands, in collaboration with Crossmark -- asked sales and marketing professionals from companies with more than $1 billion in annual sales to rate the importance, challenges and budget impact of experiential, personalization and hyperlocal marketing. It also examined consumer perception toward those campaigns.

The study revealed that three in four sales, marketing and merchandising executives rate experiential, personalized and hyperlocal marketing either "very" or "somewhat" important. And while they believe the media is important, about one-third also are concerned about the difficulty in scaling up these types of targeted campaigns.

Two-thirds of the brand marketers participating in the program say they would boost budgets for hyperlocal and experiential marketing if they could find the return on investment and solve challenges related to resources and scale.

Some marketers also are still under the impression that hyperlocal, personalized and experiential marketing campaigns will never scale because they only reach a small number of consumers.

The white paper also shares the viewpoint of consumers. The shopper survey, conducted in October, was intended to gauge how consumers' social media habits intersect with shopping behavior. About 1,500 consumers participated. Some 88% of shoppers who also participated in a study about experiential marketing said if they enjoy the interaction with a product away from the store they will add it to their shopping list. Seven in 10 consumers said they will share a brand experience through social media, four in 10 will "like" a brand on Facebook, and one in four will post a comment on a social networking site.

This white paper, like so many others, provides a marketing tool for the company, but it's important to look past the hype and into the trends.