The close of 2016 is upon us and it’s time for marketers to conduct an annual review of the strategies and tactics they’ve used throughout the year. Weighing the pros and cons regarding the tools they’ve used over the past year and measuring how successful they were against their stated goals will help them make decisions about whether, and how, these tools should be used moving forward.
Campaigner recently conducted a survey collecting insights on how marketers reviewed their 2016 strategies and their proposed changes for 2017. Read on for findings of this industry report and tips that will help other marketers prepare for the year ahead:
Buy buttons go bye-bye
Marketers are turning away from the direct buy button on social media in the coming year after nearly three in four reported seeing no sales after implementing them. 25 percent fewer marketers are using buy buttons today than were using them last year, and 40 percent plan to use them less in the year ahead.
Once expected to be a new source of revenue for brands, buy buttons are not realizing their potential for marketing success. Marketers should account for this as they allocate resources for the year ahead and shift their expectations toward content sources that have been more fruitful in the past, such as email and advertising.
Email excels
For content distribution, marketers overwhelmingly reported email as their channel of choice for reaching their audiences in the coming year. Email marketing was ranked the most effective means of digital marketing, and nearly 75 percent of marketers plan to use it more in the coming year.
Read rest of the article at Huffington Post
