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Open Your Eyes for the Digital Revolution

Professor Erik Van Vooren

Founder,
Erik Van Vooren Direct Marketing Institute, BE

I.                  Preamble

I will discuss the digital revolution in marketing.  The first part of my presentation is on marketing and sales, where the future is very different from the past. 

II.               Change in Marketing

Marketing has become very complex: marketing people now have to create good products; build strong brands – brand image is growing in importance; find new customers; up‑sell and cross‑sell their customers; and create customer loyalty.  This all has to be done cost-effectively.  Marketeers tend to be efficient people, but in measuring customer contact we now want to know the cost of each customer acquired.  Boards want more control: they want to know what percentage of their advertising budget was wasted.  The result is neurotic marketeers. 

This is Wall Street’s mission statement: we want more of everything, and to do everything better.  There is no mass marketing any longer: we have to market one customer at a time, and do it in real time – very interactively.  That all makes marketeers’ lives hard, so change is happening.  Change is very difficult.  Marketeers must have excitement, adventure, something new, untried, and different.  Our challenge is to change our industry and company’s marketing habits. 

That means shifting from customer-product management to a...  The rest of the text is available by entering your password on the previous page (proceedings)