2007 Marketing Year End Review: Top Marketing Trends

As 2007 comes to an end, it's time to look back on what went on in business through the past year. Entrepreneur.com took a look back with a list of some of the top marketing trends. Here is a look at some of the trends.

College grads: College graduates became a hot trend in 2007 by raking in big bucks to marketing media. Due to the computer savvy nature of these recent grads, the internet was a primary source for catching their eye in a number of businesses.

Not only is the internet recent college graduates favorite place for entertainment, but it is also their favorite place for shopping, and college grads need a lot now that they are out in the real world. The top purchase by college grads in 2007 were professional clothing, travel/airline tickets, health insurance and furniture.

Affluent Working Women: This is a group that has increased through 2007, thus making it more of a money maker for businesses. Also, the best way to reach these working women is online, just as with college grads. According to entrepreneur.com, working women with total family incomes of over $75,000 or more have increased their access to the internet approximately 94% on average per month in 2007.This increase in internet users has also been counter balanced by a decrease in radio, television, newspaper and direct mail users.

Word of Mouth Marketing: This popular form of marketing was just as successful in 2007 as in past years. Also, it seems women are more likely then men to share their good product experiences with others, thus making them better candidates for WOM marketing. Also, full-time employees make more daily contacts than those not in the workforce or employed part time, making them yet another great target for WOM.
Finally, it seems those making more than $100,000 a year were also more likely to tell friends about products or services they enjoyed as well.

Simultaneous Media Usage: It may come as no surprise that in 2007 consumers were increasingly using multiple forms of media at once. For example, BIGreserach's "Simultaneous Media Survey" found seventy percent of those who use the internet watch television "regularly to occasionally" while they were surfing the net. Also, almost sixty-five percent of TV watchers were said to read in front of the tube. Finally, a little over half of those who listened to the radio said they would read the newspaper at the same time.

This multiple media usage opens gateways for marketers, giving them a variety of outlets to reach consumers. However, the messages marketers used during 2007 had to be brief due to the halved amount of attention consumers would pay to each media they were using.

Another point of trends in 2007 can be found in the world of business. Vistage, one of the world's largest executive leadership development companies, came out with its own top trends list giving the business trends for 2007. Here is a sampling of some of the trends Vistage found to be at the top:

Small businesses turning to global markets: Vistage CEO Rafel Pastor saw the global economy as "increasingly being fueled by small businesses." This once large business dominated market saw some small fish in the big pool in 2007. Small businesses in 2007 may not be fully enveloped in the global market, but many were testing the waters and seeing great opportunities, such as great growth and more money in the bank.

Mergers and acquisitions expanding to small businesses: Small businesses make a trend again by not only extending to global markets but to acquiring and merging with other companies as well. According to Vistage, many of their members in the $50-$100 million rage were in the process of or had merged with or acquired a business in 2007. More than 50 percent of these companies said they were considering a merger or acquisition in 2007.

Culture Clash Between Baby Boomers and Generation Y: Now that baby boomers and genYers are working together, there is bound to be a clash of generations. In most cases, baby boomers in 2007 were dealing with genY employees and having trouble retaining these employees due to the generation gap. However, many boomers have been able to overcome to gap and found ways to work with the younger crowd by mixing the younger creativity with the older skill.

About The Author-- Charlotte Buelow is a contributing business writer for Goliath. Goliath is one of the Internet's largest collections of business research, news and information. Learn more about Goliath.

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