I recently participated in a survey conducted by Forrester Research. The results: spending for E-Marketing and B2B social media will likely remain the same or increase over the next year. In spite of the economic downturn, interactive marketing continues to be seen as a worthwhile investment across 333 businesses that Forrester surveyed. Investment categories included blogging, social networking, email, and search optimization. Traditional marketing tools, such as display ads, should see a decrease in budgeted dollars.

A full 70% of recipients said that their spending would stay the same or increase. As you might expect, professional services, financial services and E-Marketers were the most likely to say they would continue to invest in interactive marketing tools.

How about you? Is this where you’re spending your dollars? If so, you should have an overall game plan and mapped out campaign, and a way to measure success. This is way to make your emarketing a tool for long-term growth and success, not just the “next great gimmick” to try out.

E-Marketing should be an important part of your marketing and brand strategy. Incorporate it wisely for the long-haul.

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What makes someone choose your brand over another? How do your products reflect your brand identity? As your promise of what you stand for in the marketplace, your brand must be both relevant to consumers and different from your competition. When you design for your brand, you integrate marketing analysis and design instincts. What’s going to be relevant to your customers is based on where your products are in their market life cycle, and on the spoken and unspoken needs of your customers.

You may have a technology advantage over your competition, but is that what is important to your customers? Your brand design elements must show your customers that you get them. They must not only communicate the functional advantages, they must radiate the emotional cues that attract and retain your customers.

Do your brand elements engage senses other than sight? What does your brand sound like? Smell like? Taste like? What is its feel? Effective brand identity design considers multiple ways to express your brand persona and value proposition, all aimed at reinforcing customer preference.

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