A new global report from IBM indicates that advertisers are moving away from traditional press, radio and TV campaigns in favour of direct marketing strategies.

According to the research, 63 per cent of global chief marketing officers have said that they will increase online marketing spend.

Increasing numbers of people are representing themselves online, utilising websites to promote their own businesses, one essential way to becoming an affiliate marketer.

One primary benefit of representing yourself online is that you can promote your own products and services that are only accessible from your site. 

Mikesblog suggests offering your visitors a unique service providing them with access to free information, technology or software; and goes on to mention semantic technology which can enhance your business by adding value and building your brand. This can be one of the best ways to set yourself apart from the competition.

Direct marketing is the key to improving the reach to the over 50s sectors, according to new research by marketing agency Millennium.  Apparently nearly 60% of people in this age bracket felt that advertising to their age group was patronizing and that the most popular channel for this sector was found to be online marketing.

Marketers need to change their approach in marketing to this particular group if they are to cash in on the ‘grey’ pound.

For further comment, read our article about the baby boomers.

A rash of seemingly conflicting online marketing stories caught our eye. First came the news, as reported in Marketing Week and many others, that the European Parliament is considering restricting the use of online behavioural targeting (BT).

The tracking of the online behaviour of individuals and the selling of data to advertisers raises difficult privacy issues, according to the European Parliament, and the strengthening of existing EU legislation hasn’t been ruled out. Jack Jia included some interesting comments on privacy in his blog, as well as a rundown on the pitfalls of BT, particularly looking at how much Facebook really knows about its users’ intents. Meanwhile, Matthew Finch at e-consultancy tells us that use of behavioural information can boost your marketing success by up to 600%.

Then we heard that no less a brand than Vodafone is launching – you’ve guessed it – a new behavioural targeting campaign. So which way is the confused marketer to turn?