. . . for direct marketers. DMI technology editor, Jamie Riddell, has some answers.

Digital Marketing is now evolving at such a pace it is hard sometimes to identify what is a key long-term trend and what is a passing phase. With marketing budgets needed to deliver as much return as possible, one cannot trial every passing trend.

‘Social marketing’ has gained a lot of coverage over the past 18 months and, indeed, this column seems to talk about it every issue!

From a writer’s perspective, I try to find the important trends that will affect the digital direct marketing arena, including, but not purely focused on, social. The fact that most of my articles discuss social is testament to the importance it will have on all aspects of direct marketing.

So why is social so important?

Well, at the most fundamental level, all brands are social. The reason brands like Nike or BMW are so strong is not just down to their core brand values, but how they are consumed in the wider world and what that says about a person. If you are the proud owner of a new BMW, you would expect your friend’s response to be: “Oh wow! A BMW,” rather than a discussion on fuel efficiency.

The conversation about the brand starts with immediate brand recognition from which a conversation can be had.

Brand power

The power of the brand impacts many search campaigns. If you took two advertisers and ran them against the same paid search activity you would find the bigger or stronger brand will achieve greater clicks at a lower cost. Why? The stronger brand not only stands out more, but the user clicking has already taken a view on the brand and will be looking to start the purchasing process. The less well-known brand will need to fight harder for clicks, paying more to be in a higher position and suffering a lower conversion rate, as many clicks are simply to understand who the company is and what it offers.

Before this leads off to a discussion on branding, have a think about how brands are consumed in the social space.

I take it you all know of the Kryptonite lock? It’s an old story I love, so excuse me for repeating it. If you Google Kryptonite lock you should see some video results of a lock being broken with a Bic pen. When the video was published, Kryptonite had to recall the product. The video remains prominently in the search results more than three years later, which can’t help paid and natural campaigns trying to sell new locks.

I can give you may more negative examples, but on a positive side, social can be harnessed to improve search results. If you run search campaigns you will know the constant challenge to find new relevant search terms with volume. By identifying social chatter around your brand you can find out what people are talking about and add the themes to your keywords.

Furthermore, you can identify concerns consumers may have about your product. The iPhone 4 launch has been dogged by issues of signal loss, yet only one advertiser appears against ’iphone 4 signal’ on Google. This would be an easy opportunity (for the relevant company) to be promoting a rival phone or an accessory to fix the problem.

That type of knowledge is easily available which could be working to improve your search campaigns today.

But social isn’t here just as a market research tool. The advent of Social CRM is coming which will present further challenges and opportunities. There is no strict definition for Social CRM, so I can offer my opinion. From a DM point of view, I believe Social CRM to be the ‘art’ of building and managing connections across a much wider range of digital channels from email to mobile, Facebook, Twitter and all the other social networks.

The number of touchpoints between brand and consumer is now much wider. Maintaining a presence and relationships on multiple channels is about convenience for the consumer. Brands should no longer assume the customer will come to them, instead brands should go to the consumer, connecting with them on the channel and in the style they wish.

The challenge will be to maintain an understanding of who you are talking to.

You may be talking to the same person on Facebook and Twitter as well as emailing them and sending them mail. What processes are in place to ensure the messages are united and, most importantly for the consumer, what processes are in place to ensure you are listening to the consumer? With social networks, brands have a huge opportunity to enter free dialogue with the consumer, which the consumer will expect to be actioned upon. A successful CRM strategy should be able to ensure that is reflected across all channels on which the brand and consumer are connected.

Social CRM is going to play a very important part in direct marketing as we move forward.  Seamless CRM, with multiple channels, will not be an easy task, but this industry has the brains to achieve it.

Harness the trend

Have you heard about Social TV? Like Social CRM, this is really just a convergence of disciplines rather than a brand new technology or industry. In essence, Social TV is the connection between TV and social networks, facilitated in a number of ways. Watching TV and Tweeting is a growing trend.

As I write this, one check of Twitter’s trending topics (on the Twitter homepage) will show influence from TV shows, the World Cup trending across the world, with the UK talking about Glastonbury festival performers and an appalling soccer match for England.

Companies are now working hard to harness this connection for the ultimate benefit of brands. Names like Go Miso, Tunerfish and GetGlue may all be ones to watch for.

Technology is also working to close the loop between television viewing and Internet access (which facilitates social). A recent report from GigaOm estimates there will be 250m app-enabled televisions (in the US) by 2015.

The range of apps available will be dictated by technology and opportunity, but you can expect a wide variety of strong apps. The same report estimates 3.7m apps will be downloaded for televisions this year.

Imagine using your television commercials to direct to your website instantly, like online ads, or promoting your own branded app on television!

I am also interested to see how the social ‘chatter’ can work with commercials. Like Google’s SideWiki, consumers may be able to comment directly on commercials giving you instant qualitative feedback to improve your marketing.

These are just some of the ways in which social will start to impact direct marketing. Rather than a ‘revolution’ of marketing, this is the next evolution of consumer empowerment in which they will expect more from brands.

In turn brands will need to consider how they harness this trend to benefit the consumer and their own bottom line.

The opportunity

Furthermore, the rise of social should not be seen as a threat but an opportunity for direct marketing.

The knowledge we can gain from the social channels can only help us improve the targeting, the offering and returns we achieve.

The social world is here now, it is on Facebook, it is facilitated by Twitter and on many more apps, channels and platforms.

Consumers are already talking about your brand, products or services.

If you do nothing else, start listening today.

Jamie Riddell is the CEO and co-founder of Digital Tomorrow Today, an over the horizon digital consultancy for brands. A digital veteran, he has been delivering Digital DM campaigns since 1996. As co-founder and director of innovation, he built one of the UK’s largest digital marketing agencies before selling to the Digital Marketing Group plc. You can follow him on Twitter.com/jamieriddell

www.digitaltomorrowtoday.com