Marketing Forecast from Ad-ology

Ad-ology Research recently updated their Industry Marketing Insights report for Gutter Protection Installation Companies. The following are the predicted Top 5 Opportunities/Challenges from the report for this industry for the upcoming 12 months:

* More places are offering points, which allows vacationers to be more flexible with their vacation days.
* Some resorts are “going green” to save energy, as well as to appeal to eco-conscious vacationers.
* Retiring Baby Boomers are poised to be a very lucrative market.

Even though 81% of companies say they plan to increase spending on social media over the next year, most of those companies are still struggling to figure out how to measure their return on investment, according to a new study from web marketing consultants E-consultancy. The report, which based its findings on a survey of 400 U.S. companies and agencies (19% of them retailers) in December and January, found that among the top reasons companies are pursuing social media are to: drive traffic to the company’s web site, 74%; raise brand recognition, 64%; and improve the brand’s reputation, 62%.

Consumers may have suffered through a recession in 2008 and 2009 but the household cleaning and supply industry escaped largely unscathed. Perhaps consumers were forced to terminate their housekeeping services and turn to their own mops and brooms during periods of unemployment. The need to clean caused consumers to purchase more supplies to get the job done, resulting in industry sales of over $5.6 billion in 2009.

Job seekers in the marketing industry have reason to hope based on the February 2010 survey results released by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. While hiring in the industry have been virtually stalled for some time, nearly half Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) expect to bring on new employees within the next 6 months.

Companies. The following are the predicted Top 5 Opportunities/Challenges from the report for this industry for the upcoming 12 months:

* Recent winter storms are expected to boost business.
* More businesses are offering add-on services to increase revenue.
* Aging homes represent a big opportunity for these companies.

In a new survey among affluent luxury consumers, some 78% of affluent consumers have at least one social networking profile (usually on Facebook). From the marketers’ point of view, social networking sites seem the logical place to close sales. However, expecting to generate sales with a Facebook page is a misunderstanding of how affluents actually use social media, according to Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of the new trend report on the luxury market. “Social media is most valuable to luxury marketers as a way to listen to their customers, not about finding another channel through which to sell to them,” as most affluent consumers use social media “as one more tool to gather information to make purchase decisions.”