I wrote the other day about ten trends to watch coming out of the BMO Advertising and Marketing Services Conference. Today I want to dig a little deeper into two of them and discuss why I think they’re relevant even if you’re not an advertising or marketing service business.
Trend number one was the incorporation of technology into other industries. In a nutshell, this means Internet Protocol-based communication systems being mixed into objects such as refrigerators, roadways, and elsewhere. Trend number two, which is an outgrowth of trend number one, is the explosion of data available today. Here’s why you should pay attention.
In the first case, when you incorporate IP into something, it makes it addressable. That means two way communication is possible. For marketers, it means the ability to target messages to places previously unreachable (I know, you, the consumer, can’t wait!). It also creates opportunity for new business models even for existing businesses (if every seat in an arena is addressable, how does that affect concessions, ticket sales to future events, etc.?).
Of course every one of these objects, as well as your web site, social media, and, oh yeah, real-world systems is kicking out data, hence trend number two. We need people and systems to make sense of all of that data and turn it into actionable information and not just numbers. I probably spend half my time helping clients to do just that and it amazes me how much great data is wasted because companies are operating “lean and mean” and don’t have the resources to take advantage of the information they gather. We’ve discussed many useless reports there are in this world and what we can do to make them more informative and actionable, so I won’t delve into that here. But you should be spending some time thinking about what data you’re collecting and how you’ll use it to answer business questions in an actionable way. If you need help, you know how to reach me!
What do you think about these two trends? How are you going to ride their waves?
Consult Keith 