What is the biggest change in marketing?

People have been saying that it is the declining effectiveness of the traditional media. But more correctly it is the change in consumer behavior. With the Internet as the key driver, consumers research and buy products in a very different way today. Consumers are often ignoring push marketing in favor of using the internet as the basis for their own decision making and transactions. Think about it. Don't you often ignore the advice of the sales staff when choosing a product in store - because you know better already? Don't you use the web to validate your doctor's advice? Most of us do.

So the marketing challenge becomes - how do you gain access to consumers as they conduct their research?

Well first of all I suppose you need to be relevant. If customers are being more demanding than ever before you need to be able to respond to them - whenever, wherever, however they need it. And to be relevant you need to do your homework. How do your customers research online? Which sites did they go to? How do they perceive your competitors? Who is saying what about you on which blog? Who are the key opinion leaders in your category? How do your customer make their final decisions?

If this holds true, the agency of the future is not an advertising agency, BTL, ATL, Digital – or whatever – it is a company helping other companies to increase their turn over (revenue) through higher relevance.

This in turn encompasses the mastery of "relevance channels" such as viral marketing, grassroots marketing, CRM, paid and organic search marketing SEO, co-branding / alliances, social media / citizen journalism. RSS, chatgroups, pop-up retail, communities, word of mouth, network marketing etc.

So this is where the attention goes in 2008!

Happy New Year!