In an increasingly competitive business world, organizations must use advertising and marketing approaches that set them apart from the opposition. The power of direct marketing is often debated, with not everyone convinced of its potential for success.
LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue spoke with Forbes recently about the future of direct marketing. According to Blue, creating marketing campaigns that are geared toward specific types of consumers will eventually become obsolete.
"The sort of deluge of advertising — let's just send 100 million of them and we know that 100,000 will hit — or 1,000 will hit and we will be satisfied with that result — those days are numbered," Blue said.
Blue further explained that spam tactics will continue to be profitable for a time, so businesses will continue to use them. Eventually, however, those approaches will be replaced by other systems, and they will change the entire face of marketing and advertising.
In spite of this, the Direct Marketing National Client Email Report 2013 found that 89 percent of businesses find email to be "important" or "very important" to their organization. Additionally, one-third of respondents said that email marketing accounts for 50 percent or more of all digital business revenue.
Spamming potential customers does not need to be the answer for companies. Using real time advertising and a more targeted approach will be far more successful for organizations of all sizes.
Partnering with internet advertising agencies can help small- to medium-sized businesses keep current on what their customers want and how best to reach out to them. Targeted marketing campaigns are not obsolete, and with numerous amounts of data available, it is essential for companies to gather the right information and create strong advertising campaigns.