Communication is key, says Alterian survey

Alterian has released research that reveals that almost half of marketing agencies see achieving effective communication with individuals as the key issue facing marketers over the next 36 months.

The survey, carried out among almost 100 senior executives from 45 leading UK marketing agencies during Alterian's annual partner summit in May 2009, showed that 45 per cent view effective communication as a must-have for any campaign.

It also revealed that many expect their roadmaps for fully embracing integrated marketing - key to delivering the right message through the right channel in a timely fashion - to play out over the next 12-24 months.

David Eldridge, chief executive officer at Alterian, said: 'Traditional marketing campaigns took market research or group data and built programmes around many generalised traits and assumptions, but did not treat customers as individuals.

'Companies can spend huge amounts of money driving people to their website through search and Google Ads, but if the website does not then engage those people, the efforts and money spent are wasted.

'Today's marketing relies on a two-way conversation and our business partners are geared up to supporting their clients with engaging data-led campaigns both online and offline.

The main theme of the survey was to discuss the industry's move towards customer engagement.

Almost 74 per cent of respondents claimed that their customers were beginning to understand the value of engagement, although opinion was divided as to how this was expected to happen.

Iain Lovatt, executive chairman of Blue Sheep - an Alterian partner, said: 'The need to engage better with customers is driving all types of marketing campaigns today.

'In order to do this, marketing campaigns need to be integrated across online and offline channels and must speak to customers as individuals and not demographics.

'Integrated marketing is clearly going to be a focus for many businesses over the coming 12 months.

Despite the increasing dominance of social media, this was ranked second in the list of key drivers by clients to change their marketing activity, with 28 per cent of the audience voting for this.

Around 65 per cent of respondents ranked the increasing use of the web to research, engage and transact with their customers as the most important driver for change.

Eldridge said: 'Customer engagement is the new marketing.

'Smart marketing service providers and agencies realise that and are using their close relationship with their client's data to drive a move towards individualisation of communication and through this are much closer to achieving customer engagement.

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