With technology's rapid pace of innovation, digital marketing is an ever-evolving business that often requires more than a travel organization can muster internally. Enter the digital agency, which complements, augments and sometimes replaces the internal marketing capability.
So what do these agencies actually think about their clients, and what do agency perspectives reveal about the underlying weaknesses at the brands they represent?
The latest SoDA (Society of Digital Agencies) report dives into this very fragile territory, offering the deepest worldwide look at the state of digital marketing. In its seventh year, the report garners over a quarter of a million views a year, making this one of the most-consumed 'digital trends' report.
Those with agencies on retainer will likely find great entertainment - and without a doubt some incredulity - at the way that agencies in aggregate see their clients.
Even for those without a contracted digital marketing agency, the perspectives on the current state of digital marketing offers a blueprint for development and resource allocation for the next fiscal period - including the outlook for digital marketing budgets across platforms and capabilities.
Here's the full report - in its 236 slides of glory - followed by some more pertinent pullouts from the data, which was culled from respondents, 42% of which were marketing executives on the client side and 43% were on the agency side working with clients.
Tech trends are clearly driving marketing
Technology was covered copiously in the report, showing that tech continues to be a vital asset for all marketing. In fact, there's just no way to market anymore without a clear, cohesive and cogent understanding of the technology and underlying trends driving commerce into the future.
Data was far and above the core focus of the emerging tech discussion, showing that brands are not quite sure what to do with the firehose of data that's being created - and mostly captured - by companies worlwide. The report identifies three core challenges faced by digital marketers:
1. Create consumer-relevant and potentially automated content.
2. Provide meaningful multi-device experiences. Although there is great anticipation for the “Internet of Things” where everything from our fridge to our shoes will be connected devices, there isn’t a strong consensus on how brands will be able to leverage this trend in meaningful ways with consumers outside of categories such as health and fitness.
3. Respond to the growing abandon of a desktop/laptop experience and make mobile more relevant/responsive to the customer journey.
An alternative perspective on Big Data comes from chairman of the SoDA board Tony Quin, who says that we need to stop ignoring Small Data.
The good news is the data processing and analytics software now available for small data is remarkable and getting better by the day. In my own agency, we have analysis tools for social listening, website metrics, search, display ad performance, email, and so on.
Each piece of the puzzle is reviewed individually to understand the dynamics of that particular tactic. This is where the analyst comes in.
Together, all these bits of data fill in the picture of the consumer’s behavior piece by piece that adds up to a profile or a persona of our target audience.
We find the insights that lead us to new approaches and uncontested territory in the process of relating them together.
In this remarkably busy, complicated marketplace where consumers are touched by a myriad of influences, marketing success doesn’t only come from some black box filled with big data, but from the people attending to lots of little black boxes filled with small data, every day.
Beyond those core challenges, tech maintains its place as the heart of marketing. "Useful augmented reality" is identified by one respondent, Gavin Becker of Made by Many:
The proliferation of Bluetooth LE and Apple’s iBeacon protocol is helping to lay the foundation for precise, portable, standardized infrastructure with endless possibilities – be it retail, events, or in the home.
Mobile messaging is also identified as the next frontier for digital marketers - not many marketers are using the platforms, as attention is currently fragmented across the platforms.
Perceived weaknesses in digital marketing
One of the most revealing questions was about what weaknesses clients had in the eyes of the digital agency respondents, especially when compared to how the clients see themselves.
58% of clients see "some change" or "significant change" when it comes to internal transformation in their organizations, while 37% of those on the agency side believe clients are actually moving towards real change. This is an unsurprising disconnect, as agencies always want to be valuable with clients and clients are more likely to feel confident that they are doing well - perhaps due to the added strength from agencies.
When it comes to technical capabilities, clients are learning how to engage with responsive design, social media, mobile and Big Data.
As far as marketing talent in specific marketing verticals, clients see user interface as the most powerful capability they own - something that arguably is not being mastered by a near-to-complete majority of brands:
Or, in another format, the same data:
Budgets slowing in digital
The explosion of digital dollars is losing some strength, with the amount of money being invested in digital initiatives dropping.
The report suggests the reason for this is that new investments were made in emerging platforms last year, without clear results yet:
Clients are likely holding tight to current plans, waiting to see if last year’s digitally-focused initiatives yield the positive impact anticipated during the 1st half of 2014.
The full report includes digital case studies from travel brands Morgans Hotel Group and the LAX airport's latest digital installation.
NB: Secret's out image courtesy Shutterstock.