Time to talk to, not at, consumers

It's safe to say that marketing has evolved over the past year. Businesses have switched from talking at consumers to talking to them. A lot of the changes were made as a result of further connectivity between big businesses and buyers, which came directly from innovative technologies such as mobile devices and social media.

As 2012 approaches, the way organizations plan to market their services or products will incorporate a lot of the findings from 2011. Experts at Silverpop, an email marketing agency, found that certain trends will trump others when it comes to creating a more engaging strategy for product promotion. Many companies will look to fill product marketing jobs with individuals who understand the value of the new technologies in the consumer market.

Job seekers who want to play a role in the emergence of consumer-related product marketing must learn a few basic trends about where advertising is heading in the years to come. Geo-targeting and local search capabilities, partially initiated by smartphone technology and an influx of useful applications, have combine to assist businesses in attracting new customers based on location.

Businesses can begin to better understand their customers' needs by tracking the clicks that people make when they visit their website. Analyzing information, such as which page, form, link or product a person chose to view, will help provide insight on how most consumers navigate a web page. The compiled statistics will help web developers better organize websites based on consumer preferences.

Another interesting trend, which may seem old to some, is the reemergence of multi-channel marketing. Of course, businesses have typically chosen to advertise products through more than one outlet, but today, the amount of channels have tripled, including paid search, QR codes and mobile applications.

Focusing more closely on mobile apps, it is interesting to note that Foursquare alone surpassed the 10 million user mark in June 2011, and is currently growing at 1 million users a month, reports Silverpop. Businesses that combine unique marketing to guests who use Foursquare, as well as geo-targeting people who have checked-in in the same area, can capitalize on the growing use of location-based applications in the consumer market.

What pulls all of these findings together is the fact that, when used correctly, they work to improve customer relations and sales. Businesses need to spend less time finding ways to convince shoppers that they need certain products and more time listening to the problems many already have. It doesn't make sense to sell a solution to a problem that does not exist, so moving forward, listening to buyers may present the biggest opportunities in 2012.