Marketing is no longer about mastering the use of traditional channels, but about constantly innovating and utilizing creative solutions that will maximize returns.  Creativity is critical to differentiate one’s message, grab people’s attention and effectively reach the various audiences that are being targeted.  The rule book has to be cast out and channels are being hand-picked to reach the target audience.

Marketing decisions will have to change as companies are forced to shift focus and reach people where they are.  For example, consumers are using email less for personal communications and instead are using text massages, posts on Facebook, Tweets, Instagram uploads and more to communicate.  This means that the promotions mix will shift from being mainly or even solely traditional advertising and will now feature increased interactive and digital media, the growing use of mobile marketing, digital marketing, augmented reality, increased use of new media marketing strategies not limited to social media and more.

Simply put, it means going where customers are and communicating with them on their terms.

Social Media Marketing

Social media today can be seen as one of the most powerful marketing channels. In order to ensure effectiveness, marketers must take advantage of social media management tools which can help to save you time and significantly increase reach via these channels and increases the impact of your content. There was extensive informal sharing of information about chikunguya in Jamaica over the past couple months and some of the greatest learning about this illness came through online channels.  This lends the question of how an effective national communications campaign could be rolled out using non-traditional channels to support such a crisis.  The power of social media is real and if used effectively, marketers can reap real benefits and increase their return on investment.

Mobile Marketing

There is continued proliferation of mobile telephones in Jamaica and with over 2.7 million mobile telephones (PIOJ – Survey of Living Conditions 2013), mobile marketing is a highly effective means of communicating.  Also Jamaicans are spending more time on the Internet and increasingly persons are connecting via mobile devices.  The way people communicate and access/process information has drastically changed and given that mobile phones are now a part of our DNA, communication marketers must reach people through this channel.  Whether it be SMS, MMS, App based marketing, push notifications or any of the wide range of mobile marketing options, because mobile phone usage continues to grow, there is increase value from the channel.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality provides a way to better engage with customers using a combination of physical and digital methods.  In Jamaica today, we are seeing greater applications of augmented reality in posters, brochures, fliers and more.  Even traditional channels such as newspaper have used augmented reality to bridge the gap between traditional and digital media.  Who would have thought the newspaper reading experience could be made more interesting through this technology

Additionally, the introduction of trans-promotional advertising in some cases also featuring augmented reality has widened the options for marketers to directly reach customers in a more interactive way.  This means not only via printed materials, but also electronic documents.

All in all digital marketing is becoming more and more pervasive especially because it allows marketers to be better able to track their return on investment relative to other traditional marketing channels.  The numbers speak for themselves and one can quickly change channels based on the results achieved.

Welcome to our new reality. 

This post was written by AMA contributor Nichole Brackett Walters and originally appeared on the AMA Headquarters website.