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Thursday, December 24, 2015

How Atlanta Interactive Marketing Has Changed Advertising

By Benjamin W. Luffkin


Many people have never heard the term interactive marketing. It is a new way for companies to communicate with customers and potential customers with the objective of producing more effective advertisements. The hub of this relatively new movement in advertising is Atlanta, which is also home to the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association, the AIMA.

Run by volunteers, the AIMA is a membership organization. It creates a forum where professionals and meet can exchange ideas. Professionals in this industry appreciate the importance of staying current. They join the AIMA to stay at the top of their chosen profession.

The AIMA has something they call SIGs, special interest groups. They have meetings throughout the year to brainstorm about the opportunities to market in eight different areas: email, social media, mobile, marketing automation, digital divas, analytics, digital media and ecommerce. AIMA also has a blog, an awards ceremony and educational seminars.

The company that produces goods or provides the services and the marketing company function as one entity. Through an advertisement, the company attempts to arouse the interest of the consumer, acquire likes or dislikes of the consumer, and then personalize the next ad or email so that is relates to that consumer. Advertising becomes a sort of two way dialogue.

This two way dialogue between consumer and seller is best facilitated by the Internet. Within the Internet, social media is a strong component of conversational advertising. Although the consumer may not be fully aware he or she is communicating, they are in fact communicating with every click of their mouse. The old fashioned survey is another form of interactive advertising, but it is not as accurate or effective.

There are some low tech ways to get feedback from consumers, but they are not nearly as effective or seamless. Whenever a consumer calls a company for any reason, the company representative will get other pieces of information from the caller and attempt to sell other services or products. The phone call may be followed up with an email, text or survey.

In the time before TV remotes, personal computers and smart phones, the prominent ways to advertise were television ads, radio ads and print ads in newspapers and magazines. With the ubiquitous use of pay TV, online news and pay radio the old ways became less effective. Advertising people are resourceful by nature. They understood the changes in consumer behavior and adapted to accommodate those changes. The new interactive methods reach out to the consumer of today.




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