EPIPHANY!!!  A recent survey of marketing executives by Datran Media points out the change.  Sixty-three percent of marketing executives interviewed indicated that  the most important priority was the acquisition of new customers.   Nearly forty-three percent said that retention of current customer was most important.  Duh.

The study goes on to note  marketing directors expect mass media expenditures to decrease in importance in 2009.  I guess if you don’t have much of a budget that would be the conclusion.  Meanwhile, activities that cost less and are trackable like e-mail and search will experience an increase in spending as a percentage of the marketing budget.  Kind of a double duh.

Studies and factoids like these brew marketing Kool-Aid.  They support our belief that the world as we know it is changing.  The funny thing is that the world as we know it is always changing.  Change is the oldest thing in the universe.  What’s newer than new media?  New, new media?

We embrace these changes, but we try not to be awed by them.  We use them to our clients’ advantage and try not to get caught up in the hype while still being excited about the possibilities.  If we were to get caught up in the hype, we would recommend activities to clients  on the basis of the hype and not the expected result.  We would end up forgeting that our goals are to take care of current cleints and get new ones…that never changes.  And that is the epiphany we should be paying attention to.