Alterian held its annual partner day last week, attended by nearly 100 senior executives of 45 of the UK's top marketing agencies and service providers. The likes of Rapp, Targetbase, Occam, GB Group, Dataforce and Experian were all in attendance.

The big draw? Dave Frankland from Forrester Research was keynote speaker and talked about how marketing agencies need to change to adapt to the emerging kind of consumer that wants a more engaging experience. His words had strong resonance with the audience.

Dave has recently published his research on UK based marketing service providers The Forrester Wave: UK Database Marketing Service Providers (www.forrester.com) and has also produced a document on how British firms use database marketing services (www.forrester.com). Both are well worth a read if you are thinking of implementing a new system.

Dave's research is enlightening. When he surveyed clients about their recent implementation of marketing databases, asking for the top 2 reasons for vendor selection, he found that 58% cited 'fit with requirements', 53% said 'cost', and 32% cited 'expertise'.

One of Dave's key insights was that "customer Intelligence has moved to the front of the room".

Alterian conducted its own research during the event, electronically surveying the attendees on a number of key questions and discovered some interesting facts and trends about digital marketing: – 53% of clients now demand a digital element in every campaign – 41% have seen a significant increase in digital demand in the last 12 months – 88% have seen some increase in demand.

Alterian also asked why clients were changing their activities: – 65% said it was due to their customers wanting to research and transact on the internet – 28% cited marketing becoming a dialogue and the need to understand and engage with social media.

While Dave Frankland's 'agency of the Future' - the 'Customer Engagement Agency' - strongly aligned with 45% of the audience's own corporate strategy (and was similar to 38% more), the attendees claimed that the client base was lagging behind with only 25% of customers being ready to grasp customer engagment as a core principle, although the groundswell is building with a further 49%.

These trends show that it's now vital that marketing agencies champion these new engagement strategies, as it will take a combination of creative, data and planning skills to create compelling campaigns across the wide range of touch points customers now interact with.