Right On Interactive: Celebrating Seven Years

Today is Right On Interactive’s seventh birthday! We are very excited and have planned a wonderful party with our team to celebrate another milestone in the company’s history.

The list of what’s changed in the past seven years is a long one – there’s the widespread adoption of measured marketing, driven by Adwords & Analytics; the widespread adoption of Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare that revolutionized the way we communicate; the growth of email marketing, and so on. However, there are three major technology milestones I’d like to address as we celebrate today.

Smartphones

Beyond mobile phones and tablets, I think smartphones in particular impacted marketing and marketing technology significantly. Consumers are interacting with brands on the go, all the time, and it’s all incorporated in their daily life. They are playing games, taking notes, taking pictures and videos, and sharing everything with the touch of a finger. Smartphones provide an unique opportunity for marketers to display a marketing message to the consumer based upon what they are doing at that time, not solely on what they like or where they are located.

Social media

I would be remiss to not mention the impact of social media on the way we conduct business today. Social media has changed how we talk to each other, share and find information, and interact with brands. In a 2006 report by Compete, then VP of Marketing Stephen DiMarco suggested:

Companies would be better served to build online forums on their sites, micro sites that support their brand, or explore other ways to get consumers to participate with them versus going to social networks to find more consumers.

Fast-forward to 2013, nearly one-third (32 percent) of online consumers trust a stranger’s opinion on public forums or blogs more than they trust branded advertisements and marketing collateral. Consumers expect to find brands they like and trust on social media.

An entire industry of marketing technology and marketing experts has been born around social media. Seven years ago, marketers were trying to figure out what to do with social media (I don’t think we have that figured out completely yet), but marketers today are driving revenue from social media.

Virtualization and cheap data storage

This last one is more technical, or geeky, but it has totally upended the marketer’s world: Data. There is a ton of data our there; or to be technical I should say terabytes and petabytes of data. It’s cheap. It’s accessible. It’s on demand. What’s more, it’s within reach of marketers of all stripes. Technology now enables marketers to be measured. Or to flip that around, marketers can now produce hard evidence that their marketing is working.

I am proud of the last seven years at Right On Interactive and the team we have here. Our philosophy is simple: Marketers need to focus on the entire customer lifecycle – from initial touch to qualified prospect, to customer, and finally brand advocate. You can shout out to the world your marketing message all you want, but it’s all about who is engaging with your marketing message. I’m looking forward to the next seven years and hopefully engaging with you.