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Social And Email Top Growing Marketing Budgets For 2012
by Jack Loechner, Friday, December 23, 2011 9:10 AM
A recent StrongMail survey, conducted by Zoomerang in November, reflects the attitudes of business leaders about their planned marketing budgets, priorities and challenges for 2012, revealing
a healthy outlook for marketing budgets with 51% of companies increasing and 41% maintaining current levels. For the third year in a row, email marketing and social media marketing remain the
top targets for increased spend. For the 2011 holiday shopping season, email marketers plan to focus on cross/upsell offers and promotion of in-store events. Survey
Highlights
- 92% plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in 2012
- 60% plan to increase email marketing budget; 55% social media; 37% mobile/search (tied)
- 45% cite data integration as primary email marketing challenge in 2012; 43% lack of resources/staff; 40% content management
- 48% cite increasing subscriber engagement as top 2012 email
marketing initiative; 44% improving segmentation/targeting; 32% growing opt-in email list
- 68% plan to integrate email marketing with social media; 44% with mobile; 17% with search
Email marketing and social media were cited as the top two areas for increased marketing spend. According to the survey, 51% of businesses plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2012,
and another 41% plan to maintain current levels. Only 8% of respondents plan to decrease marketing budgets. Other areas of increased spend included mobile and search. Direct mail and tradeshows
are top targets for decreased spend.
Plans For Increased Spending in
2012Program% of Respondents Email marketing 60% Social Media 55
Mobile 37 Search 37 Advertising 28 Direct mail
18 Tradeshows/events 18
Public relations 16
Source: Strongmail, November 2011
The top email marketing initiatives for 2012 are increasing subscriber engagement, improving segmentation and targeting, and growing opt-in email lists.
Top Email Marketing Initiatives for 2012 (% of Respondents Selecting Top 3)
Email Marketing Initiative% of Respondents
Increasing subscriber engagement 48% Improve segmentation & targeting 44 Growing opt-in email list 32 Integrating social media & social marketing 24 Implementing lifecycle messaging
20 Re-engaging inactive subscribers 19
Source: Strongmail, November 2011 Data integration is key to achieving these top priorities, but it is also
identified as the primary email marketing challenge in 2012, followed by lack of resources and content management. These opposing data points represent an opportunity for email service providers to
fill the gap, says the report.
Top Email Marketing Challenges for 2012 (%
of Respondents)
Challenge% of Respondents
Integration with customer data 45% Lack of resources/staff 43 Content management 40
Maintaining high deliverability 33 Managing send cadence & frequency
29
Source: Strongmail, November 2011 More than two-thirds of businesses
plan to integrate social media and email in 2012, versus 44% integrating mobile and email. The strong ties between email marketing and social media are also emphasized by the businesses that plan to
increase investment in using email to drive growth in their social media channels, such as corporate Facebook and Twitter pages.
Channels Planned for Integration With Email in 2012Channel% of Respondents Social media marketing 68%
Mobile 44 Search 17 Display 14
Source:
Strongmail, November 2011 More than a third of businesses plan to increase their investment in mobile marketing programs such as mobile apps and SMS
alerts, but there is a lack of consensus on the primary value of this emerging channel. Building customer and loyalty was identified as the top benefit, followed by expanded reach and awareness
building.
Primary Values of Marketing Channels (% of
Respondents)
% of Respondents Considering ValuableMarketing ChannelEmailSocialMobile Awareness building
51% 64% 29% New customer acquisition
38 36 23
Customer loyalty and retention 67 48 35
Reach new audiences 26 44 29 Driving revenue 44 14 26 Lead generation (B2B) 29 19 12 Not sure 3 11 24
Source: Strongmail, November 2011
Christopher Marriott, vice president of agency services at StrongMail, concludes that, “... while email marketing leads... in terms of increased investment in
2012... marketers need to overcome key challenges around data integration and resource constraints..." For
more information from Strongmail, please visit
here, or to
access the report PDF file, go here.