Is Using Cheap Social Media a Cop-out for Marketers?

April 20, 2011 - PRLog -- When you see companies over-using social media or email marketing, what do you think? Cheap and lazy? These are the thoughts of Simon Carter, Marketing Director for Fujitsu’s government arm.  He fears that by repeatedly using free and simple methods, the more junior marketers will ignore the traditional marketing skills they have been taught.

Previously a part of the marketing teams at both Thomas Cook and Post Office, Carter says “Junior Brand Managers think social media is a great way of getting their message out to a wider audience at virtually no cost. The problem is that it’s cheap churn and too often, the stuff we as marketers are taught in the classroom about targeting; about the right message; about good creative and the proposition and so on, are forgotten.”

Carter does however defend the use of social media and email marketing, describing it as playing an ‘important role’ but marketers must not get lazy if they want to have successful marketing campaigns.  He goes on to say, “I see campaigns where practitioners no longer worry about getting email addresses right. If something goes wrong it’s like ’so what, we’ll send another batch of 10,000’. I think that without the postage or printing costs that we used to have with direct mail, it seems to matter less if something goes wrong”.

On the flip-side of this, most successful marketers are the ones that stay on top of the latest technologies.  We must move with the times and as the online community is growing it would be crazy to not reflect this in marketing strategies.  Perhaps a wise suggestion would be to include social media and email marketing in the overall marketing strategy but to not rely on this as the only form of communication between company and consumer.

Digital marketing, including SEO, paid search, mobile and email, is a useful tool to learn; the Chartered Institute of Marketing is offering a one-day course for students, members and guests of the CIM.  Made up of easily digested seminars, the course explores the critical aspects of digital marketing (as outlined above).

Taking place on the 25th May this year at the Perkins Innovation Centre in Peterborough, speakers will include Mark Cook (Search Marketing Director of Further), Mark Challinor (Director of Mobile for Telegraph Media Group), and Matt Horsup (Director of Itineris).

Registration is from 10:00 and the event will run between 10:30 and 16:30.  See below for prices:
Member-       £100
Studying member-    £50
Student-       £50
Guest-       £150

For more information on digital marketing roles, please visit Brand Recruitment’s website, http://brandrecruitment.co.uk/jobs/show/7/Online-Marketin...

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