Trend: Smart marketers are leveraging interactive games to overcome short attention spans.

With the anticipation of Zynga’s upcoming IPO, interactive gaming has been getting a lot of attention lately.  Unfortunately, according to Forrester Research, this attention has yet to transpire to mainstream marketing, as 84% of marketers have no plans to incorporate games into their promotional mix.  For the remaining 16%, their efforts are sparking a revolution in marketing, influencing the proliferation of gaming technologies resulting in its access by marketers and agencies of all sizes.  More importantly, games are providing the much-needed content to hold consumer and prospect attention – an extension of the bilateral conversation brands strive for.

Trend: With a mean score of 60% professional marketers still have more to learn

Download the quiz results and share with your co-workers

A few weeks ago Trends & Takeaways asked its subscribers to participate in a fun quiz to learn more about professional email marketing topics.  Since this was an advanced quiz, subscribers did better than expected however the mean score was 60%.   The reason why we chose to make this quiz advanced is because advanced email marketing tactics, or any advanced marketing tactics for that matter, are now needed for long-term success.  The pace at which the marketing discipline is evolving has rapidly changed from linear to parabolic requiring constant updating of not only skillsets (as mentioned last week) but also general knowledge.  The mean score indicates that professional marketers still have a way to go in mastering email marketing.  However, you can take comfort in Phil Kotler, distinguished professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management words of wisdom, “marketing takes a day to learn and a lifetime to master.”