Web marketing: savior or hype?
A marketing world without email newsletters, Google Adwords, Facebook and YouTube? Almost unthinkable. In the exam world of the top training courses, however, web marketing still plays a subordinate role. There are reasons for this. The first e-posts have already been hammered in, and more are to come.
This marketing shot backfired. When German entrepreneur Wolfgang Gropp was recently asked about his Internet affinity and social media on the online portal Innovativ-in.de, the head of the textile company Trigema had some pithy words: "I don't use it. For me, Twitter is just stupid, and the people who use it are idiots." Gropp, at 68 years of age a typical representative of the so-called "digital immigrants", triggered a veritable Twitter storm. Online disciples from every nook and cranny of the country came forward to cover Gropp and his company with virtual curses. This example shows two things: there is a big gap between those who grew up without the Internet and those who can no longer do without it. Second learning: messages, both good and bad, spread online like the proverbial wildfire.
Marketers are becoming increasingly interested in the latter in particular. Viral campaigns via the big YouTube movie stage, email newsletters with trackable open rates, brand fan clubs on Facebook - these are all part and parcel of today's practice, this is where the music is played. Online marketing in general, web marketing via social media, is very important. A scene that is developing at breakneck speed, where it is sometimes difficult to maintain an overview and distinguish gags from really relevant trends. It's also a scene that is often not covered at all or only weakly in training. Dominique P. Locher, Director of Marketing and Sales at online retailer LeShop, recently made this particularly clear: "Today, university graduates join a large company as product managers and, according to the official doctrine, behave like control freaks who want to have all the details in the relevant sales outlets and markets under control. Transparency and regionality play an incredibly important role in the new markets. For example, when a South African housewife runs her blog on the subject of Pringles potato chips and reaches 26 million readers, she virtually takes control from the relevant product manager." Consumers may not intervene so strongly in the domain of marketers everywhere, but Locher is right about the trend: with Web 2.0, the "participatory Internet", consumers who were previously simply served with messages and products are now getting involved in the marketing process themselves.
Recognize relevance - and track it
Topics such as online marketing and social media still play a subordinate role in the training and examination plans at Swiss Marketing. This is partly because the regulations are designed for years to come, but also because it is difficult even for experts to identify really important trends that will be relevant by the middle of the next decade. "The online aspect and social media - it's impossible to imagine everyday marketing without them today," says Christoph Portmann. The owner and managing director of the consulting firm Score Marketing in Stäfa, Zurich, and lecturer in the training of marketing and sales managers, is himself amazed at the enormous dynamism in the new fields: "Social media in particular has exploded in the last few months alone." Portmann is a board member and expert in the written subject "Marketing Concept" as well as an expert in the oral subject "Marketing Concept" in the federal marketing specialist examinations. The online topic has already left its first traces here. E-marketing is addressed in the guidelines for marketing specialists, which came into force in 2009. Search engine marketing (search engine marketing) and permission marketing (permission marketing, which is central to the delivery of e-mail newsletters, for example) play a role in the examination subject "Integrated Communication". But that's not all: Portmann says that this year's annual training course for around 80 experts will focus on online marketing and social media in the area of marketing concepts. This is a concrete response to the fundamental challenge that the experts are generally older than the candidates.
Peter Petrin, Vice President of Swiss Marketing and responsible for education, sees online marketing as a must: "At the very least, it's about acquiring a voice in the field and knowing how to use tools such as Facebook or Xing - both of which are a reality in our business lives - in marketing." Petrin, Director of the Swiss Institute of Business Administration, is launching the first eleven-day "Digital Marketing Expert" course at his training institute this fall. The modules include email marketing, mobile and in-game marketing, social media, blogs and podcasts. According to Petrin, if the topic is also to be examined in Swiss Marketing's courses, there is one main difficulty: "We don't want to teach gray theory, but rather pass on best practice, i.e. demonstrate successful methods from the real world. However, there is not yet much experience of this in Switzerland; there is a lack of really good and in-depth domestic case studies." Nevertheless, Petrin believes that the topic can be incorporated into examinations in an uncomplicated way, "for example as a component of sales concepts". If action is to be taken quickly, changes to the examination guidelines could be considered, "because these do not have to be approved by the Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology OPET; the respective examination board can adapt this itself."
"Of course, this is basically true," confirms Claude Dubois, Head of Examinations at Swiss Marketing, "but any such change to the examination regulations must first be approved by all sponsoring associations, i.e. the Gesellschaft für Marketing (GfM), KV Schweiz and the Swiss Direct Marketing Association (SDV) in addition to Swiss Marketing." In addition, the training institutes must be given a lead time of around one and a half years for new examination content so that they can adequately prepare and train the new topics. Dubois formulates the general direction of travel as follows: "Content from online marketing will have to be included in the near future, that's clear, after all we want to appeal to younger generations and this material is simply part of it." However, as an examination reform has just been carried out in 2009, we don't want to rush into anything and run the risk of delivering piecemeal work: "After this reform, a two to three-year phase of gathering experience is called for, which means that we will probably start tackling the next reform next year."
Which phase in the hype cycle?
When dealing with content from online marketing and the omnipresent social media networks, the question of the half-life of these tools quickly arises. Is Twitter just a phenomenon that lasts a year or two - or is it so relevant for marketers that it should be included in exam syllabuses? To a certain extent, examination regulations that are designed to last several years will probably always lag behind the fast-moving online reality. However, they are likely to set the right priorities and thus ensure that the material learned and tested is relevant - today and tomorrow. But how should you choose from the plethora of tools and where to focus? "You should concentrate on tools and applications that are past the first stage of the hype cycle and have achieved a certain level of relevance," says Marcel Bernet, owner of Zurich-based Bernet PR AG für Kommunikation. This certainly includes Facebook, "which, with its 2.2 million Swiss users, has a reach that will remain important over the next five years". Bernet counts viral campaigns, such as those conducted via YouTube, blogging, online evaluation platforms and customer dialog via company websites in general among other relevant web marketing fields. Bernet, who lectures at the Swiss School of Journalism MAZ, believes that online topics could already be addressed in examinations today without changing the regulations, "for example in the oral part, if the expert can raise the question of how the candidate assesses social media in the general marketing mix and how he would use it". Case studies on the use of online marketing can already be found in large numbers for the USA and Europe, and to a lesser extent for Switzerland.
It is probably only a matter of time before a sufficient number of case studies can be procured in this country too. This would lay the foundations for completing the curriculum of the next generation in the field of online marketing.
And Wolfgang Gropp, the Twitter detractor? He apologized in an open letter to those he had denigrated: "If anyone felt offended by this, I would like to apologize. It was not meant that way! We ourselves are also active on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube, for example, which is something a company should not do without in this day and age." With the location of his apology, Gropp took the first step from digital immigrant to digital native: the mea culpa appeared on the Trigema page on Facebook.
Marketers are becoming increasingly interested in the latter in particular. Viral campaigns via the big YouTube movie stage, email newsletters with trackable open rates, brand fan clubs on Facebook - these are all part and parcel of today's practice, this is where the music is played. Online marketing in general, web marketing via social media, is very important. A scene that is developing at breakneck speed, where it is sometimes difficult to maintain an overview and distinguish gags from really relevant trends. It's also a scene that is often not covered at all or only weakly in training. Dominique P. Locher, Director of Marketing and Sales at online retailer LeShop, recently made this particularly clear: "Today, university graduates join a large company as product managers and, according to the official doctrine, behave like control freaks who want to have all the details in the relevant sales outlets and markets under control. Transparency and regionality play an incredibly important role in the new markets. For example, when a South African housewife runs her blog on the subject of Pringles potato chips and reaches 26 million readers, she virtually takes control from the relevant product manager." Consumers may not intervene so strongly in the domain of marketers everywhere, but Locher is right about the trend: with Web 2.0, the "participatory Internet", consumers who were previously simply served with messages and products are now getting involved in the marketing process themselves.
Recognize relevance - and track it
Topics such as online marketing and social media still play a subordinate role in the training and examination plans at Swiss Marketing. This is partly because the regulations are designed for years to come, but also because it is difficult even for experts to identify really important trends that will be relevant by the middle of the next decade. "The online aspect and social media - it's impossible to imagine everyday marketing without them today," says Christoph Portmann. The owner and managing director of the consulting firm Score Marketing in Stäfa, Zurich, and lecturer in the training of marketing and sales managers, is himself amazed at the enormous dynamism in the new fields: "Social media in particular has exploded in the last few months alone." Portmann is a board member and expert in the written subject "Marketing Concept" as well as an expert in the oral subject "Marketing Concept" in the federal marketing specialist examinations. The online topic has already left its first traces here. E-marketing is addressed in the guidelines for marketing specialists, which came into force in 2009. Search engine marketing (search engine marketing) and permission marketing (permission marketing, which is central to the delivery of e-mail newsletters, for example) play a role in the examination subject "Integrated Communication". But that's not all: Portmann says that this year's annual training course for around 80 experts will focus on online marketing and social media in the area of marketing concepts. This is a concrete response to the fundamental challenge that the experts are generally older than the candidates.
Peter Petrin, Vice President of Swiss Marketing and responsible for education, sees online marketing as a must: "At the very least, it's about acquiring a voice in the field and knowing how to use tools such as Facebook or Xing - both of which are a reality in our business lives - in marketing." Petrin, Director of the Swiss Institute of Business Administration, is launching the first eleven-day "Digital Marketing Expert" course at his training institute this fall. The modules include email marketing, mobile and in-game marketing, social media, blogs and podcasts. According to Petrin, if the topic is also to be examined in Swiss Marketing's courses, there is one main difficulty: "We don't want to teach gray theory, but rather pass on best practice, i.e. demonstrate successful methods from the real world. However, there is not yet much experience of this in Switzerland; there is a lack of really good and in-depth domestic case studies." Nevertheless, Petrin believes that the topic can be incorporated into examinations in an uncomplicated way, "for example as a component of sales concepts". If action is to be taken quickly, changes to the examination guidelines could be considered, "because these do not have to be approved by the Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology OPET; the respective examination board can adapt this itself."
"Of course, this is basically true," confirms Claude Dubois, Head of Examinations at Swiss Marketing, "but any such change to the examination regulations must first be approved by all sponsoring associations, i.e. the Gesellschaft für Marketing (GfM), KV Schweiz and the Swiss Direct Marketing Association (SDV) in addition to Swiss Marketing." In addition, the training institutes must be given a lead time of around one and a half years for new examination content so that they can adequately prepare and train the new topics. Dubois formulates the general direction of travel as follows: "Content from online marketing will have to be included in the near future, that's clear, after all we want to appeal to younger generations and this material is simply part of it." However, as an examination reform has just been carried out in 2009, we don't want to rush into anything and run the risk of delivering piecemeal work: "After this reform, a two to three-year phase of gathering experience is called for, which means that we will probably start tackling the next reform next year."
Which phase in the hype cycle?
When dealing with content from online marketing and the omnipresent social media networks, the question of the half-life of these tools quickly arises. Is Twitter just a phenomenon that lasts a year or two - or is it so relevant for marketers that it should be included in exam syllabuses? To a certain extent, examination regulations that are designed to last several years will probably always lag behind the fast-moving online reality. However, they are likely to set the right priorities and thus ensure that the material learned and tested is relevant - today and tomorrow. But how should you choose from the plethora of tools and where to focus? "You should concentrate on tools and applications that are past the first stage of the hype cycle and have achieved a certain level of relevance," says Marcel Bernet, owner of Zurich-based Bernet PR AG für Kommunikation. This certainly includes Facebook, "which, with its 2.2 million Swiss users, has a reach that will remain important over the next five years". Bernet counts viral campaigns, such as those conducted via YouTube, blogging, online evaluation platforms and customer dialog via company websites in general among other relevant web marketing fields. Bernet, who lectures at the Swiss School of Journalism MAZ, believes that online topics could already be addressed in examinations today without changing the regulations, "for example in the oral part, if the expert can raise the question of how the candidate assesses social media in the general marketing mix and how he would use it". Case studies on the use of online marketing can already be found in large numbers for the USA and Europe, and to a lesser extent for Switzerland.
It is probably only a matter of time before a sufficient number of case studies can be procured in this country too. This would lay the foundations for completing the curriculum of the next generation in the field of online marketing.
And Wolfgang Gropp, the Twitter detractor? He apologized in an open letter to those he had denigrated: "If anyone felt offended by this, I would like to apologize. It was not meant that way! We ourselves are also active on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube, for example, which is something a company should not do without in this day and age." With the location of his apology, Gropp took the first step from digital immigrant to digital native: the mea culpa appeared on the Trigema page on Facebook.
