Did you know, and I have this scrawled on a napkin, so that means I read it somewhere… but that the best ROI in the next 6-12 months will be broken down this way:

-Search 30%

-Email 18%

-Mobile 8%

-Digital Advertising 18%

-Social Networking 21%

-Other 5%

A couple of thoughts. The first being that you will see wholesale changes in those numbers. I have been telling anyone willing to listen and in interviews that the 3 things that people, marketers, advertisers and businesses should be aware of over the next 12-18 months are: Mobile, Social, and Search. Why, well lets think about this… The one indispensable thing that you have and need every day. What is it? What one thing is no more than a foot from you at all times? What bill always gets paid? That’s right, your mobile device, your phone, your extension of YOU.

Quick thought; Do we now as a society, judge people on the type of phone they have? The same way we do when it comes to cars? Maybe not, since 10 year olds are now armed with them.

Ok So here’s the phone( I’m using the g-phone prototype as my example)  and  with it, the browsers are getting and will be getting quicker, the rates are dropping, the interfaces more user friendly, and lastly, lo and behold- a news bastion of advertising landscape has opened up. Marketers now have another way to reach a captive audience. How? Through ads driven by search, contextual and paid. Search is going to be huge for mobile. Bottom line-Google knows whats up.

Ok, so now we have the mobile part, we have the search part, but we’re lacking the other piece. I have written previously how social nets are still somewhat bourgeoisie, in that in some cases they are not accessible to everyone because of certain economic situations. But… even in extreme cases, people manage to have a cell phone. So, the next big extension of Social is and is moving towards a “Mobile Social” environment! Want an example of a mobile social environment? How about Brightkite?  BTW, Does anyone know if they are still doing it by invite only? I’ve played around with Brightkite, and I must say it’s pretty cool. I can invite you if you need me to, just let me know.

On a side note, if you’re still curious, and have a spare $695 laying around on the dresser, emarketer has a mobile social report available, and I quote:

eMarketer forecasts that over 800 million people worldwide will be participating in a social network via their mobile phones by 2012, up from 82 million in 2007.

As my man in the Bud light commercials so aptly says it….”Dude”.. That is a major number. 800 million! That’s a tad south of a billion!  One last thing, did you see the last ROI figure from the above list? “Other” was going to have 5% market share! Which means someone is utilizing or going to utilize “other” to their benefit over the next 6-12 months, but they have chosen not to share with us, what “other” is? Anyone care to venture a guess?

Last thing, I have another piece of info I want to share with you, and this is for all the folks out there, that have marketing on the mind but do not know where to put forth their efforts. This is a list of online marketing tactics, how many of these do you use?

• Affiliate marketing
• Corporate web site
• RSS advertising
• PPC
• Behavioral targeting
• User generated content
• SEO
• Mobile Advertsing
• Widgets
• Contextual advertising
• Video Marketing
• Virtual Tradeshows
• Webinars
• Virtual worlds
• Rich media avatars
• Rich media apps
• Podcasts
• Advergames
• Social networks
• Forums/BBS
• Online display ads
• Branded microsites
• Email marketing
• Cross branding
• Microblogging
• Social bookmarking
• e-commerce feeds
• Viral marketing/WOMM
• Online PR
• Online contests
• Free content
• Paid reviews
• Blog advertising
• Blogger relations

Here are a ton of questions for you:

How many of the above do you recognize or know?

How many of those are you reading about for the first time? 

How many have you actually used?

How many have you used with some success?

How many of those make more sense now than they ever have?

How many of those will you absolutely never use again?

How many of those are indispensable to your success?

I think what you’ll find is you can still use certain elements of them and have various degrees of success assuming that you know what you are doing. But at the least, now you have an idea of what you should be aware of when you get pitched or maybe I’ve given you some ideas on what might work with a particular challenging client.   Either way, Good luck!