The Tray Way: Where will Marketing be in 2012?

The end of the year is approaching, which brings with it the end of procrastinating on planning for 2012. While we have a lot of great things to remember about 2011 - especially on the award front, we are looking forward to the opportunities that are ahead of us. So, what is the marketing community thinking about for this upcoming year? There is lots to read about, but one item that caught our eye was a recent press release out of the Midwest regarding forecasting marketing budgets.

According to research by Under the Radar, a Chicago-based firm, most U.S.-based marketing brand managers intend to increase their budgets in 2012, as well as plan to develop even more innovative marketing strategies. Other predictions include:

• Brand marketing managers are quite optimistic about the first half of 2012 and increasingly even more optimistic about the second half of the year.
• ROI will be a key focus, with results surpassing “brand image” in regards to how the budgets are broken out.
• The winners in 2012 will be those brands that can capitalize on innovative experiential marketing opportunities and treat each prospect as a unique customer.

Working with clients in many industry sectors, we agree that 2012 will see a demand for increased focus on the actual dollars-and-cents return that marketing investments are having. For some, this will mean finding the newest technology or platform and jumping full-board into it in hopes that it is the "silver bullet." However, we see this as an opportunity for an experienced firm that has an expertise in all forms of marketing processes to test new, innovative strategies on proven platforms. By continuing the process of integrating one or more current marketing techniques (print, web, social media, etc.), it allows marketing experts to be marketing experts and push a strategy forward, as opposed to research and learn about another platform that is based around potential. Additionally, by evolving and learning from what we know, this will allow for the opportunity to bring tried-and-true marketing processes back to the forefront.

In the end, if 2012 can keep pace with 2011 in the marketing landscape, we are in for an exciting year.

---




The Tray PML Way is the blog for Tray, experts in the printing, mailing, logistics and promotional products. You can learn more about our capabilities by visiting our website, as well as our Facebook and Twitter pages.