Digital Marketing Report

2012
content mobile ux & creative digital communication social media
analytics & optimization

technology & development

www.metia.com | info@metia.com

Customer Advocacy
Engagement

tABLE OF CONtENtS
MOBILE Smartphones, mobile websites and applications, platform fragmentation, competitive differentiation, tablets, platforms, privacy, HTML5 CustOMEr advOCaCy Critical questions, industry changes, globalization, finding advocates COntEnt Storytelling, advertising, authenticity, info bursts, futureproofing, content as a service sOCIaL MEdIa Participation, mobile vs. PC use, search, changing social landscape, location-based marketing, measurement dIGItaL COMMunICatIOns 14 10 8 5 1

Cultural concerns, maximizing channels, hyper-customization, email automation, mobile, using trends uX & CrEatIvE 17

Trends for automotive, healthcare, and finance, brands with UX, the cloud tECHnOLOGy, dEvELOPMEnt & EnGaGEMEnt Mobile development, porting, offshoring, brand integration anaLytICs & OPtIMIZatIOn Making sense of it all, privacy aBOut MEtIa 24 22 19

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METIA

2012
I N S I G H T S

MOBiLE
Mobile continues to have a major impact on digital marketing strategies and budgets. Mobile can mean many things in 2012, including smartphones, tablets, and feature phones, which may be more important than you think. Mobile applications are going head-to-head with mobile websites, and to the surprise of some, websites are taking the lead more in 2012 than they did in 2011.

www.metia.com | MetiaUS@metia.com | 425.629.5800 | London | New York | Seattle | Asia Pacific

MOBiLE

4 billion
3.05 billion
are SMS enabled

mobile phones in use globally

Over 300,000 mobile apps have been developed in 3 years. Demand for mobile apps is expected to peak in 2013.

950 million are not SMS enabled

Japanese consumers excel at using mobile for mobile web, apps, and email. US and Europeans primarily text and play games

1.08 billion
are smartphones

86%
of mobile internet users use their devices while watching TV.

Most popular mobile destinations are news and information, weather, social networking, search, and maps.

91%
compared to

of mobile internet access is to socialize

79%
on desktops

US consumers prefer mobile web for banking, travel, shopping, local info, news, video, sports, and blogs; they prefer apps for games, social media, maps, and music.

By 2014 mobile internet should take over desktop internet usaged music.

www.metia.com

Mobile websites vs. mobile applications

The line between apps and websites continues to blur. Users care less and less whether something is an app or a mobile web they just want content. The technology that brands use to drive their mobile offerings needs to be compatible for both apps and websites. If you can do only one, default to mobile web. Users are decreasingly storing app information separately from web information. There is a drive toward consolidated access points. Marketers need to consider the entire experience that customers have with a brand, including web, mobile web, and apps (and in-store experiences) to ensure that the entire relationship is user-friendly and seamless.

Platform fragmentation
Brands need to get (and are getting) better at addressing the demand for well-branded mobile experiences because weve finally had some time to work with the medium and refine our approaches. Best practices are finally emerging on this technical frontier. Marketing efforts need to abide by best practices where they exist and make user-friendly decisions where they dont. There are several widely used platforms, and brands have to jump through different development, design, and release hoops for each one. Common thinking is that brands should start with iPhones because they have the highest market penetration, but its important for brands to understand both the marketplace and their users. There may be regional differences in adoption

www.metia.com | MetiaUS@metia.com | 425.629.5800 | London | New York | Seattle | Asia Pacific

MOBiLE
rates for particular platforms it could be that you are in a strong pocket of Windows Phone users and should start with that platform for your app. Three years ago there was only iPhone, and now there are also Windows Phone and Android plus multiple tablets, multiple form factors, and varying regional user behaviors. Mobile devices have lost their novelty and are embedded in users daily habits; this is true even in regions that do not have smartphones. Marketers can address these fragmented needs by understanding their customers and their behaviors. If marketers dont have this data already, user testing and focus testing can help. Most website analytics programs can tell you what kind of mobile device is being used to access a site this could be a strong indicator of which device you should lead your mobile strategy with.

Not everyone has a smartphone

Metropolitan marketers could easily believe that smartphones and iPads are in the hands of everyone on the planet. While they are a big deal, the majority of consumers are still using feature phones (at best). The future of media will require adapting not just to emerging technology, but to emerging markets. Their needs are different, and you cannot market to them in the same way that you would to metropolitan areas in industrialized countries. SMS still has a higher and faster response rate than email to mobile devices. Marketers should seriously consider SMS if they want to penetrate emerging markets. 34% of people use their mobile phones to email, compared to 72% of people who use text messaging on their mobile phones. 22% of emails are opened, compared to 98% of text messages. 1216 emails are received by the average person each month, compared to 178 text messages. (JupiterResearch 2007, Neustar 2009)

More competition with less differentiation

Microsoft, Apple, and Google understand the critical role that app marketplaces play in gaining customers and establishing customer loyalty. They have each taken steps to ensure that the most popular and useful applications are available cross-platform (we all remember the coup when Microsoft landed Angry Birds on Windows Phone). The competition to have the best app marketplace is stronger than ever, but at the same time, the individual markets are losing differentiation because each marketplace is trying to offer the same baseline of popular apps. Users increasingly expect their apps to be available on all platforms, and the makeup of the app market will lose differentiation among the different platforms. Right now Microsoft differentiates itself from Android and iPhone with its Office integration, which could be a game-changer for enterprise mobile. It remains to be seen if Android and iPhone will go after enterprise the way that Microsoft has. They have tools that mimic MS Office, but they dont have the degree of integration that Microsoft offers. If a marketer is developing a B2B application, there could be a strong argument for starting with Windows Phone users. Its worth noting that women have shown a particular affinity for the Windows Phone and Metro interface. If your business is targeting female consumers, you may want to lead the charge with Windows Phone.

Impact of tablets
Tablets are extremely easy to use and adopt, as demonstrated by the volume of young children who play with them (remember the viral video of the toddler who thought that a magazine was a broken iPad?). This generation is increasingly understanding Natural User Interface (NUI - i.e., touch, gesture, and voice navigation) best practices and adopting them from a very early age. This will lead to increased adoption and understanding of NUI best practices by this generation. The current generation of designers and developers were trained in a keyboard and mouse world and must adapt to a touch and gesture world. While marketers may be most comfortable with mouse-click/keypad interfaces, this is an ideal time to start incorporating touch and gesture navigation and touch-friendliness into digital solutions.

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MOBiLE
Brands piggyback on platform design elements
You cant simply build an app and expect that to differentiate your brand marketers must address the entire customer experience across all touch points and the ways that the application fits into their brand positioning. Also, does your app mirror the experience that customers have on the web? It might be more productive to make a simple but highly useful application that does one thing extremely well that your customers need. App marketing is not just about creating an application its about creating an application that is unique to the brand. The UX is an expression of the brand. This is different than it was a year ago because brands are getting better and smarter at it. Developers are getting better at mobile so they are doing a better job of representing brands on mobile. Best practices finally exist. What is the impact? The dynamic feature of Current Location is an additional segmentation point for customers. Unlike gender and birthdate, location evolves and changes: How can you authentically weave your brand promise into the daily lives and experiences of your users? Learn more about location-based marketing on page 10.

Privacy
Individual corporate privacy policies will involve a cycle of announcing the policy, dealing with fallout, and proceeding once people have moved on. Facebook has demonstrated this repeatedly, and Google came under significant fire for its privacy policy changes. People talk about privacy like its a hot button issue, but they demonstrate time and again that they are comfortable releasing confidential information (look at how many people broadcast their vacation plans via Twitter). It took a while, but the federal government is finally taking action against abusers of email privacy and spam laws. We predict that the government will take a more active role in pursuing personal privacy issues that are unique to mobile users. Because mobile applications tend to use personal information, privacy will be a growing issue for mobile application developers to consider. Read our Five Tips for Avoiding Privacy Wars at http://www. mobile-ent.biz/news/read/opinion-five-tips-for-avoiding-privacywars/017522.

HTML5 delivers a more interconnected web

For designers and developers HTML5 will change animations and video in particular. Smartphone users are increasingly accessing video on their phones, so HTML5 will take on growing importance. Read more about advancements in HTML5 on page 18.

Increased use of smartphone features, such as cameras and location-based data

Mobile devices make location-based marketing possible, and location-based promotions will be increasingly integrated into marketing programs. Purely location-based social apps like Foursquare will struggle, however, because other platforms like Facebook and Instagram are integrating location-based features that make single-use apps obsolete.

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METIA

2012
I N S I G H T S

CuStOMEr AdvOCACy
Historically, customer evidence took the primary format of four-page written case studies. Recently the shift has been toward shorter written pieces and more interactive and engaging modes of communication, including customer communities, video case studies, and social media, to name a few. Companies looking to retain their reference customers and expand their programs must consider the new ways in which people communicate and seek out ways to amplify the voice of their customers.

www.metia.com | MetiaUS@metia.com | 425.629.5800 | London | New York | Seattle | Asia Pacific

CuStOMEr AdvOCACy
Ask these questions regarding reference management
What is the value of your reference program to your organization? Can you provide measurable benefits? Can your sales teams easily access pertinent information to close deals and answer RFPs? Do you track whether or not references were used in each new sale? Do you track the revenue influenced by your references? Do you track page views and clickthroughs of online materials? How happy are your reference customers? Do you have a system to ensure that you dont fatigue your customers with reference requests?

English-only efforts dont cut it anymore

With the growth of the global marketplace and the promise offered by new markets, many companies are extending their customer reference programs worldwide. Building a worldwide program is not simply a matter of extending domestic efforts. The requirements for building an effective global customer reference programand gathering and collecting customer evidence in the form of testimonials, case studies, and other materials go far beyond experience in marketing, a knowledge of technology, and expertise in gathering and creating customer evidence. Here are some key best practices when managing multi-language customer references: Know the business etiquette. Simple matters can make a big difference in how well you connect with your customers. For example, understanding what constitutes acceptable small talk, and being aware of what hospitality means in other cultures, may be critical to your success. Relationships are important in every society, but in some cultures, they are essential. Protocols for business relationships can affect your ability to succeed in a particular region. Know the formality of the culture. Know the importance of honorifics and titles, and whether using another contact as a reference will be helpful or hurtful in a given culture. Understand regional differences. Be aware of the customer reference goals in different regions. For example, customers in the United States and Western Europe want references to demonstrate the value that your customers have enjoyed, while customers in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa more often focus on cost and are not persuaded by value metrics. One size doesnt fit all. Create a global advisory board that includes representation by regional managers. Establish clear processes to determine roles and responsibilities. Regional offices will have substantial input in defining them. These processes will also improve sales training at the local level, so that salespeople will know where to find references and how to use them. Comply with privacy laws. Uses of customer information that are acceptable in some countries are against the law in others. Verify local privacy laws to avoid legal risks.

Your database will make or break your program

In a world where sales and marketing teamsnot to mention potential customersexpect information immediately, having a solid database of references and materials is critical to shortening the sales cycle and increasing revenue.

Everything is moving faster

Customers look to client references and reviews to influence their buying decisions more than ever. Having immediate access to references and a searchable database means that sales teams can provide compelling materials during every stage of the sales cycle, helping them to gain trust and close deals faster. Large companies will find that they need a system to manage their reference program. Metias Enterprise Reference Manager (ERM) system is sold as a base system that can be customized to meet the needs of large, complex enterprise customers. A secure, scalable system is important for organizations as they strive for greater agility and speed in response to reference requests.

www.metia.com | MetiaUS@metia.com | 425.629.5800 | London | New York | Seattle | Asia Pacific

CuStOMEr AdvOCACy
Find your advocates
In an age where the buying cycle is getting longer, and more buyers take control of the buying process, the value of any companys customer advocates and the credibility they bring increase dramatically. A recent study by Sirius Decisions shows that the source most consistently trusted by buyers - at any stage of the buying process - is information from peers. Advocates can appear in many ways - through communities, social media, peer groups, articles, blogs, and other forms of media. Customers look to these forums in an effort to be educated in their decision-making process. Customer reviews and endorsements need to be available and easily findable by your customers, and companies need to control both the content and environments in which they are found. Your content distribution strategy needs to include multiple channels and formats. 2011 was an amazing year for customer engagement with brands using social media. Customers are more at ease creating a dialog with brands, and marketers are getting more comfortable listening, providing useful information that sparks conversation, and participating in conversations in ways that provide value while promoting brand objectives.

Even more participation

On average, it takes 4 employees to manage every 1,000 reference customers.

How many reference customers does

your program support?

References: By the numbers

7

37% 26% 5% 1,000 to 2,499 11% 2,500 to 9,999 Greater than 10,000 21%

Programs with fewer than 500 reference customers have

Less than 500

500 to 999

fewer employees

and more coee.

supporting their program and require more tenacity

How challenging is it to nd references to keep

your pipeline lled?

Where do you nd your

They come to us

best references?
Sales team recruiting Program Participation

Yes
No

Do you use social media

as part of your reference program?

63%

37%

1 (easy)

10 (dicult)

How do you demonstrate the value of your reference program?

42%

Feedback from sales/marketing Track web statistics such as page views, etc.

73%

Track the number of reference requests fullled Track sales revenue inuenced by references

Tools of the trade

Self Service Both Personal Service

Why do most of your clients participate

in your reference program?

72% get publicity and recognition as a leader in their industry

What percentage of your references are fullled

Magic The Force Courage Blood, Sweat, and Tears

83% love our products/services 17% get incentives for participation

by self

service or personal service?

11% are part of a program that requires their participation

www.metia.com | MetiaUS@metia.com | 425.629.5800 | London | New York | Seattle | Asia Pacific

METIA

2012
I N S I G H T S

CONtENt
A recent survey conducted by HiveFire found that 82% of B2B marketers today use content marketing. And twice the number of marketers implement content marketing vs. the number of those who use print, television, and radio advertising. These are the key trends driving content marketing today.

www.metia.com | MetiaUS@metia.com | 425.629.5800 | London | New York | Seattle | Asia Pacific

CONtENt
Storytelling is more important than ever
There are several indicators across a variety of marketing media that indicate that storytelling has overtaken the feature/benefit approach that marketers have historically taken. Marketers have new flexibility to acknowledge their competitors and their strengths in the context of industry trends and best practices. Content should take on an informative, journalistic approach that can be used and shared by readers.

Deliver value with future-proof content

Publishing cycles are increasing in frequency, and while businesses increasingly understand the value of content, they are equally focused on the challenges associated with generating large volumes of material for high-frequency publishing cycles. This includes: Cost: How to cost-effectively generate great content to meet the needs of monthly, daily, or even hourly publication cycles? Reach: How to optimize content so that it will be consumed by my audience via the devices and formats that they prefer? Discovery: How to ensure that my content is easy to find, and what techniques should I use to surface content in a way that grabs my audiences attention? Community: How to make content easy to share and motivate my audience to promote it to colleagues and their wider business communities?

Customers know the difference between ads and content

Advertising and marketing content can be used to capture the attention of customers, but if you want to maintain a meaningful relationship, youve got to deliver content that provides actual value. Content needs to be immediately recognizable as authentic, passionate, and meaningful to the audience. Me Me Me promotions are content killers in 2012 and beyond.

Long-form content is shared through shortform social channels

In 2011, we saw the decline of well-established long-form content channels (e.g., RSS feeds) and the shift to highly skimmable content vehicles such as Twitter and Pinterest. Customers are finding content in aggregated digital spaces where every story is seen in the context of other areas of interest. Marketers must take advantage of adjacent key search terms and industry trends to ensure that their content delivers the right message and builds the relationship that is needed to build their brand.

Content generation must stop being a product and start being a service
Businesses must overcome publishing challenges by replacing the traditional brief, produce, publish model of content publishing with a more efficient, flexible process. We have identified five key principles that will take on importance in the coming year: Intelligent reuse of audited or original content Smart content capture for future publication Publishing and republishing to the beat of the business Optimizing for search Integrating social media

More faster, smarter content

People are consuming content at a breakneck speed. Consumers are quite good at deciphering which content matters most to them and creating dotted lines between unrelated stories in order to better understand their world. There will be a higher volume of information bursts that are easy to consume and share but still provide sophisticated insights into important topics. The markets appetite for infographics was a leading indicator of craving for visual beauty, user-friendly content structure, and deep-dive content, all in one place.

www.metia.com | MetiaUS@metia.com | 425.629.5800 | London | New York | Seattle | Asia Pacific

METIA

2012
I N S I G H T S

SOCiAL MEdiA
Social Media is gaining ground on traditional/digital marketing. As social media tools extend brand reach, and marketers are better equipped to track metrics, marketers will find that touch points with customers within social media occur more often than with typical advertising or direct marketing. Just like marketers moved money toward digital marketing, theyll shift money away from direct mail, print, and email, and increase investment in creating social content. Watch for the increase in spend in social media channels to outpace the percentage increases we saw in the move to digital.

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SOCiAL MEdiA
Customers and brands are participating in social media like never before. In 2011, 65% of Americans use social networks, and people spent more time on Facebook than any other site online. The top-ten consumer brands on Facebook all have more than 18 million Facebook Fans - Coca Cola has more than 36 million Facebook fans, and Oreo has 23 million fans. Customers are following brands on other sites as well; for example, JetBlue has 1.6 million followers on Twitter, and Starbucks has 317,000 followers on Foursquare. Brands are integrating with social media tools like social plugins and the Facebook OpenGraph. With websites using Pin this, Like this, and Tweet this buttons, sites are seeing dramatic increases in referral traffic - 300% on average, according to Facebook. In fact, Levis saw a 400% increase after implanting the Like button and has seen those levels remain steady. As the OpenGraph rolls out, and users are seen doing an activity like listening, brands will get even more integrated into the ongoing flow of information.

Marketers need to stay on top of mobile social trends

The social landscape is changing
Some channels are dying (Gowalla, Facebook Places, Google Buzz, Foursquare), while others are emerging (Google+, Pinterest, Spotify [U.S.] Instagram). And some like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter changed radically in 2011 in hopes of making 2012 a stronger year. Google+ has pressured Facebook to address security and privacy, and how videos, pictures, and updates are shared. The new Facebook Timeline is a dramatic departure on the profile of most sites and creates a new opportunity for brands to interact with customers. LinkedIn is borrowing concepts liberally from other popular social media sites, notably Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is more customizable and is highlighting photos and videos to compete with the other social sites. These sites will continue to experiment with new features in an effort to grab loyal users from their competitors. In the end, customers will decide what works for them. Expect more changes to established social media sites in 2012. Bottom line: Dont take for granted that you understand all there is to know about social media. It changes day to day, and what seems like the future of the industry can be yesterdays news (remember Friendster? MySpace?). Marketers are more challenged than ever to stay alert to the shifting winds of social media and not be too focused on Facebook and Twitter.

Mobile use overtakes PC use

As adoption rates for smartphones and tablets increase, users will use social networks on the go, and the way they use them will shift. The majority of mobile users access social networks from a mobile device every day. Already more mobile devices use Wi-Fi than PCs, and analysts predict that in just a few years there will be more mobile internet users worldwide than wired users. Marketers need to pay close attention to how customers access and share information, and stay in front of new mobileenabled trends.

Social is integrating with search

Search ranking grows in importance every year. The integration of social media into search will make it easier for customers to find what theyre looking for because it takes into account recommendations of friends, location-based data, and user preferences and activities. Google is betting on Goole+, not because the world needs another social network, but because the world needs more relevant search results. Social media consumers will make their preferred social media platform an integral part of their search behavior.

Social media working for some industries, but not all industries
The fashion, entertainment, video games, food, and electronics industries have successfully shifted resources to take advantage of social media. Consumer brands like Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Xbox, AT&T, and Apple are setting the quality bar for social marketing. The pharmaceutical and finance industries are notable exceptions to those successfully adopting social media, despite billions spent on consumer marketing. Due largely to regulations

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SOCiAL MEdiA
that restrict what they can say about their products, these industries are extremely cautious about saying anything to customers via social channels. As both industries become more comfortable understanding what they can and cant do, theyll get more active in social media. Expect to see more from these industries next year, as the pressure to compete causes them to find the balance between participating in social media and adhering to regulations.

Facebook and HTML5

In its continued quest to be the de facto social-graph of the web, Facebook Connect will grow and expand to take advantage of new HTML5 features. This will allow deeper and richer integration of Facebook Connect with external websites and services. Think drag-and-drop, file system access, photo synching, and widgets on your desktop. All of these features (and more) will start to blur the line between desktop and browser, bringing your social graph more closely into contact with traditional desktop experiences.

Social is becoming more about personal narratives, and less about broadcasting
Location-based marketing
Retailers are integrating their online stores and popular social sites and are successfully implementing location-based technology for customers with mobile devices. Best Buy uses location-based marketing for iPhone users. P.F. Changs uses Foursquare to promote happy hour. Whether its checking in with Facebook, taking advantage of an Instant Deal with GroupOn, or getting something free with a Foursquare special, social and local will continue to gain traction. In fact, marketers predict that theyll explore more new ways to use location-based marketing in the future. Recently purchased by Facebook for an astounding $1 billion, Instagram is just one application that uses location to create personal narratives. Retailers will implement better mobile notifications when a customer is nearby, including in-store coupons that can be redeemed immediately, and better social sharing tied immediately to a purchase when the purchase occurs.

Good to great
So what does a great campaign in 2012 look like? Brands will get the best return on time and investment when they integrate online and offline word of mouth in campaigns that reach across devices and platforms and are customized to address the nuances of different types of users. To succeed in 2012, brands will use mobile devices to personalize the local experience, and provide apps or websites that enhance the product experience or brand message. They will pay close attention to every touch point and make it intuitive for customers to interact with their products or services and share their experiences with friends. Just as important, theyll implement detailed measurement plans and derive actionable insights from analytics, constantly adjusting plans to focus on activity and programs that are closely tied to business objectives.

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SOCiAL MEdiA
CONTENT IN THE DIGITAL AGE: THE LIFE OF A BLURB

BLURB

What is a Blurb?

A blurb is any content that is informative, useful, shareable, or buzzworthy.

FORUMS

WEBSITE SALES & MARKETING MATERIALS E-MAIL

Press

MEDIA PITCH

EXISTING CUSTOMERS POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS

PRESS & BLOGGERS

Say Things Worth Sharing

The digital age oers marketers limitless opportunities to communicate with people around the world. Thats why its more important than ever to make sure that the content that is produced and distributed genuinely matters. A single body of content can take on a life of its own when its embraced by the social community - but it doesnt end there. Marketers can take that content and convert it to a media pitch, sales ready material, and customer reference content that can go on to fuel future marketing eorts. Youve been handed the mic, so say something.

COMMUNITY CONVERSATION
GREAT BLURB! GOOD STUFF!

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METIA

2012
I N S I G H T S

digitAL COMMuNiCAtiON
Email marketing continues to be one of the most cost-effective ways for marketers to reach a qualified audience, leading to better engagement and increased ROI. The key is to optimize your email marketing program and take advantage of technology to ensure that youre getting the most out of your investment.

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digitAL COMMuNiCAtiON
You may be a CED someday
Metia predicts that a common future job title will be Cultural Experience Director. As companies launch globalized media and marketing campaigns from centralized international headquarters, it will be critical to be connected to the local culture. Example: Dont launch a major campaign in India during the Cricket World Cup. Marketers need to be educated about cultural taboos in branding, naming, advertising, app development, etc. Weve historically seen this play out with marketing mishaps. With digital globalization, those mistakes will happen faster and on a larger scale. Constant Contact examined its customer data from June 2010 to August 2011 and found that marketers who used both media had faster list growth; the list size doubled, and the average clickthrough rate was 59.3% higher. Instead of choosing one marketing channel over another, coordinate the two (or three or four) channels to maximize your reach.

62% of respondents want to receive promotions via email

Hyper-customization will overhaul email marketing
Email used to be one to many, and social was revolutionary because it was one to one. But for broad communication, social is inefficient and expensive and cannot be mass-customized the way email can. Relevancy has been a best practice in the email marketing industry for years. Surprisingly, though, not all marketers follow relevancy guidelines. Savvy consumers abandon email communications that arent tailored to them. In addition, email service providers such as Googles Gmail and MSNs Hotmail are changing the way email gets sorted and displayed in the inbox, meaning those emails flagged as most important and relevant are the ones your customers see first.

Maximize your channels

According to a 2011 holiday shopping survey, 62% of respondents said that email was the most useful way to receive promotions, while only 2.5% said Facebook was the most useful promotion channel. Thats not to say that marketers shouldnt pay attention to their social channelsthat number is likely to keep growing. Its about using all available channels including email, social media, SEO, and more.

If you arent already collecting important information about your customers, start now. If you already have the information and havent started using it, do it! The longer you wait, the less engaged your readers will be. Companies already have well-qualified databases, but those contacts arent necessarily following on social channels. It takes a significant investment to get the same qualified reach through social channels, particularly for B2B. Sophisticated data management systems allow marketers to hyper-customize their email marketing programs. Customized fields, when handled well, can actually feel more personal than social media.

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digitAL COMMuNiCAtiON
What is key this year is that once a program is set up and running smoothly, marketers are expected to increase relevancy by personalizing the email, providing dynamic content, and tracking metrics to optimize customer touch points and get maximum ROI. Brands have to be highly adaptive. Rather than buying media with carefully plotted campaigns that are purchased in advance and measured over time, brands have to be ready to respond to the zeitgeist and use current events and trends to their advantage. We have already seen this model deployed by Gmail when the advertising on the mail page reflected content in the messages. Take that same model and launch it on a massive scale. Kenneth Cole has successfully launched ad campaigns within a month of an event, and digital media responds within hours. Brands need to have well-honed instincts about their customers as well as efficient internal production and approval processes. Just like TV and film networks had to turn to product placement when Tivo was introduced, digital advertisers have to find new ways to get impressions online. Marketing has to get smarter as consumers demand that advertising be unobtrusive or invisible. Product placement is an excellent example of invisible advertising it is present, and often obvious, but it doesnt distract from the entertainment or task at hand.

Email automation gains in importance

Email is the number one action users take on mobile devices

Email automation can be daunting for any marketer. It requires extensive planning, thought, and insight to set up a successful email automation program or trigger-based email. Additionally, the tools to support this type of program - like a fully integrated CRM with your email platform - havent always been widely available. Nearly all email platforms offer fully integrated CRM systems. It is simpler for the everyday marketer to take advantage of automation technology and implement trigger-based nurture email programs.

Increased focus on mobile

Marketers are no longer dealing with people who either consume email on their computers or on their mobile devices. And marketers havent cracked the code to optimize email for smartphones and tablets yet. Research shows that email is the number-one action people take on both types of mobile devices. Marketers must consider their audience and goals to determine how to optimize email for their mobilized audience. A B2B message is more likely to be consumed on smartphones, and a B2C message is more likely to be consumed on PC or tablet.

Track trends and use them to your brands advantage

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METIA

2012
I N S I G H T S

uX & CrEAtivE
User Experience as a discipline is no longer a novelty. UX is being applied to every customer interaction, which is a boon for consumers who are finally being served at the most granular levels. Branders are integrating UX decisions into their brand strategies so that their reputation can be built with each button, page transition, and image download.

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uX & CrEAtivE

Consumer-style UX will infiltrate automotive, healthcare, and finance industries

Honda introduced low-level gamification into their hybrids via the interactive dashboard; healthcare companies like UnitedHealth Group and Kaiser are investing heavily into technology. There used to be a hard line between consumer UX and business UX, but those lines are blurring, and industries that are historically conservative are embracing B2C techniques for everything from employee management to service offerings. Marketers with B2B customers should keep a close eye on B2C trends and tactics because they could play out very successfully in B2B environments more so now than ever before.

More screens - not fewer - thanks to the cloud

There used to be a push to create one game-changing device that would replace all others. Today, users have accepted a variety of devices in their lives, and they use each one for different purposes. This includes phones, gaming devices, automotive screens, TV screens, laptops, tablets, desktop computers (and more). In the future, there will be more and more screens, connected by the cloud to create a seamless personal experience. Marketers will simultaneously need to be prepared to respond to emerging and unexpected opportunities, while also having a big-picture approach to their digital presence. This is best achieved with dynamic content and strong backend architecture that can intuitively place content that is segmented for the user and displayed for the device. From an advertising perspective, when the data in the cloud is combined with everywhere devices, brands can change the landscape with messages customized and targeted to their customers. Facial recognition software that exists today and campaigns that target women-only, for example, are already being tested in the market. Marketers simply affix outward-facing cameras to digital signage, and customized content is delivered to passing consumers.

Brands will adopt familiar UX elements to tighten their bond with their customers
Brands will adopt UX principles from popular platforms into their own UX in order to gain market share. For example, Apple has trained its customers to use its user interface (UI). Its familiar, which users like, but not perfect. Non-Apple brands can adopt Apple UI to appeal to Apple-loving consumers. We may see similar behavior as brands apply Microsoft Metro to their digital experiences to appeal to Microsoft users. Women are demonstrating a particular enthusiasm for Metro and Windows Phones. Android was already successful piggybacking on iPhone interface elements. We predict that nontechnical brands will use common UI in a variety of new ways.

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tEChNOLOgy, dEvELOpMENt & ENgAgEMENt

Cross-platform websites and applications are the priorities for marketers. In previous years, a mobile version of a website or a mobile app was typically an afterthought, and marketing orgs prioritized it behind more traditional marketing efforts. Now CMOs are approaching Metia more often about mobile websites and applications than traditional websites. Weve been advocating for mobile for a few years now, and it is clear that the market has gotten the message.

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tEChNOLOgy, dEvELOpMENt & ENgAgEMENt The most successful mobile apps integrate hardware features like the camera
Only marketers with a mobile development strategy will survive
A browser-based website is no longer enough to compete in industrialized markets. Marketers need to be prepared to have a traditional website, mobile website, and possibly mobile applications (which requires that they are prepared to address multiple platforms, multiple types of devices, and ongoing support of the application). The most successful mobile applications offer functionality that takes advantage of the hardware features on the mobile device, such as location-based services and the camera.

Offshoring is improving
Offshoring models are improving, with advancements in remote workforces and improved mechanisms for data sharing. Demand for a higher mix of offshore development is on the rise, and we dont see that changing any time soon. The good news is that there is a wealth of development talent in Brazil, India, and elsewhere around the world, so consumers can expect excellent quality with the push for offshore production.

More iteration, more brand integration

The future of development is very iterative, cross-platformbased, and heavily and conspicuously branded. Brand advocacy has become intrinsic in marketing, and thats why its intrinsic in development. Branding is more than a logo the actual user experience, performance, and backbone of a solution will be an expression of the brand for which it was built.

htML5 is taking center stage

HTML5 update
HTML5s primary advantage is that it works across a wide range of devices, from PC browsers to mobile phones, tablets, and even Smart TVs. As long as a device uses a browser equipped to run HTML5, it can theoretically serve as a viable platform for HTML5 games. This offers a huge advantage over native apps, which often need to be completely redesigned for their target operating system. If developers want to bring an iOS title to Android, for instance, theyll need to make fundamental changes to their app. With HTML5, that process should be easier. We expect more applications to add support for useful and interesting APIs that enable websites to connect to one another. For example, Zynga games on Facebook run inside of iframes. Using the new postMessage API, these games can directly communicate within frames. Before HTML5, inter-window communication had to rely on a remote server or use unreliable hacks.

Silverlight has become a dirty word

The uncertainty around the future support of Silverlight technology, combined with its lower adoption rates, has motivated CMOs to request HTML5 with increasing regularity. Flash is experiencing similar fallout following Adobes announcement in 2011 that it would shift away from Flash.

Porting isnt a reality ... yet

At this point, interfaces and design elements cannot be automatically ported across devices because they each offer unique and important differences. That said, as the market continues to fragment, and mobile users increase their demand for high-quality experiences, cross-platform development automation will take the sting out of the mobile investment.

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tEChNOLOgy, dEvELOpMENt & ENgAgEMENt

CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing)
CORS will make it easier for different websites to share information with one another. For example, CORS will enable startups to create photo-editing services that download photos from Facebook so that you can modify and reload them. In addition to allowing developers to easily put apps on multiple platforms, HTML5 also allows for easy cross-platform communication, enabling a host of cloud-based features, including social systems and persistent game worlds. With all of the new semantic information available with HTML5, it is getting easier to create web tools that extract information from web pages. As a result, you can expect to see a plethora of new mashup services, as well as better browser modes (like readers and translators).

HTML5 ads will become prevalent and overtake Flash ads

Website owners who are eager to monetize the increasingly large amount of traffic coming from iOS devices will demand HTML5 ads (rather than Flash ads). Startups will solve the sand boxing, security, and authoring tools issues that this new market will face. Now that HTML5 is capable of doing everything that Flash ads commonly do, its just a matter of time before it takes over.

Many more applications will use offline cache and will work offline
The offline application cache will dramatically improve the usability and speed of HTML5 apps. Querying a local database will allow applications to avoid a round-trip to the server, eliminating that laggy web-app feel that makes us prefer native apps today. Expect to see a few issues arise from this extended usage. Users may lose work by clearing their cache at least once or twice. Also expect security vulnerabilities to show up that allow malicious applications to access private files stored on a users computer by another website.

JavaScript has gotten really fast - and its going to get faster
JavaScript will get a lot faster with better memory management and typed arrays
JavaScript has gotten really fast its already among the worlds fastest scripting languages but there is room for improvement. Google Chrome has started pushing the envelope on better memory management and garbage collection algorithms. This, combined with typed arrays, will bring JavaScript performance closer to more mature languages like Java.

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ANALytiCS & OptiMizAtiON

Web analytics and measurement are going to get a lot more complicated as brands strive to understand their users and the variety of devices, platforms, and scenarios with which they engage with their content. In other words, analytics will face the same challenges that developers face in addressing the increasingly fragmented device and platform markets.

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ANALytiCS & OptiMizAtiON

Measuring for social
Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube make it easy to track conversations about your brand within their sites, but they dont give a full picture of your brands social media impact. Tools like Radian6, Webtrends, Co-Tweet, HootSuite, and dozens more help you track trends, find influencers, and see the impact of social media on your organizations goals. A few new measurement terms have emerged recently and are worth checking out. Facebook Insights now reports: Total Reach - anything viewed thats associated with your page Friends of Fans - the number of friends your fans have Active Users - people who see or interact with your content Viral Reach - those who see a specific post from your Facebook page through a story published by one of their

Marketers need dashboards to make sense of it all

Marketers will find that they need to unify data from a variety of data sources and platforms if they want to understand their users. Many marketers will turn to custom tools and software to aggregate data from disparate sources that do not typically play well together.

Fragmentation impacts analysts along with developers

friends Studies show that its possible for more non-fans to see your content than fans. For instance, Starbucks reaches almost twice as many non-fans with their Facebook stories than fans, because their fans share the content among their own networks. Pretty powerful. The myth that fans are the best measure of a Facebook pages success can finally be busted as better analytics tools prove that reach is more important than fan metrics. Twitter has similar metrics that can be accessed with tools like research.ly, Tweepi, and TweetReach.

Youve got to give a little to get a little (data)

Marketers need to incentivize customers to log-in and authenticate within their brands sites/applications to gain visibility into their customers behavior patterns. For example, a customer who is identified as the same person on the browser version of a brands website and its various mobile apps will get a richer and better-customized experience. Further, when that same customer interacts with content for that brand on social channels, he or she will get a more relevant experience than someone who browses anonymously. Marketers benefit because they can achieve a more complete understanding of that individual customers engagement with their brand.

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Digital Marketing Report

2012
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