Most digital marketers are looking to focus their social media strategies this year on leveraging the power of social sharing, according to an Adobe survey released in May 2012. Asked their top 3 strategies and tactics for the coming year, 79% of respondents said they would focus on social sharing (such as Facebook, Twitter icons on pages), easily outpacing the next-most popular response, blogs and social community pages (60%). Exploiting the potential benefits of social shares is becoming more critical, given research suggesting that social shares drive 1 in 4 online shoppers to purchase. Interestingly, though, the survey also reveals that just 9% of respondents have found that testing social sharing icons has been an effective way to increase conversion rates.
Marketers Choose Mobile Sites Over Apps
Data from the “2012 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey” indicates that more marketers will be focusing on mobile optimized websites than mobile applications as part of their mobile strategies this year. 42% chose the former as one of their top 3 strategies, compared to 34% who chose the latter. These marketers appear to be responding to consumer priorities: according to an eDigitalResearch survey also released in May, 51% of smartphone owners have shopped via a mobile-optimized site, compared to 45% via a mobile app.
Meanwhile, these fundamental mobile strategies are drawing the attention of more Adobe survey respondents than other tactics such as advertising promotions, bar-coded coupons, and QR codes (30%), social sharing (24%), and location-based marketing (16%).
Video Tops List of Rich Media Features
When it comes to the top rich media features digital marketers will be focusing on, video sits atop the list, with 61% indicating this to be a top 3 feature for them this year. Here also marketers seem to be following a dramatic trend towards online video viewership: recent data from comScore found that 181 million US internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in April, while research from Nielsen also demonstrates continuing steady growth in online video viewership.
Beyond video, other rich media features that digital marketers will turn to this year include interactive publications such as microsites, catalogues, and brochures (45%), and interactive design tools (27%).
1 in 3 Ignore Personalization
While a CMO Council report released earlier this month found that 62% of marketers believe management is enthusiastic about customer data integration, analytics, and personalization of market interactions, the Adobe survey results show that a significant proportion (32%) of digital marketers describe their current targeting method as very little to no targeting at all, while 49% are using a manual process.
The most common other targeting methods include profile (34%), order history (18%), segment-based behavioral targeting (18%), and offline customer/visitor information (16%).
About the Data: The Adobe 2012 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey received global responses from more than 1,700 digital marketers.