• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, February 29, 2004

Digital Marketing Decisions Focus on Lead Generation and Brand Awareness

The Digital Marketing Dialog, a North American online survey conducted by the CMO Council, BtoB Magazine, USA TODAY, and Responsys, received responses from over 400 top marketing decision-makers regarding the impact, influence, role, value and uptake of digital marketing technologies and programs across all industry sectors.

The Digital Marketing Dialog poll showed that the use of digital marketing techniques for engaging in successful and sustained campaigns and communications is becoming increasingly popular due to the speed, cost, and effectiveness advantages of the digital channel. In fact, the total number of email messages sent daily will exceed 60 billion worldwide by 2006, according to an IDC forecast. This compares with 31 billion email messages sent daily during 2002.

Three-quarters of respondents said they planned to increase their digital marketing budgets in 2004. Spending on digital marketing is expected to jump in 2004 with the biggest year-to- year increase expected in the 11- 20 percent of total marketing budget category. Nearly 40 percent of those who forecast spending for 2004 said they would spend more than 20 percent of their marketing budget on digital marketing.

Over 70 percent of respondents said brand awareness and recognition is a key use of digital marketing, second only to bottom line concerns as nearly 85 percent of those surveyed noted new customer lead generation as the key reason why digital marketing is used.

Measurement weighed in as the number one improvement area, as customer segmentation and analytics capabilities ranked the highest. Over half of all respondents are currently focused on bottom line measurement with emphasis on customer leads, website visits, click through rates.

What are the top three challenges your company faces in delivering email marketing today? (% or respondents. Multiple responses)
Spam and other email filters	63.7%
Email inbox clutter	60.5
Qualified email lists	53.1
Not well integrated with other customer communications	20.4
Ineffective customer segmentation	16.9
Lack of personalization	17.1
Too few customers choose to opt in	16.6
Low click through rates	13.5
Low content appeal	11.6
Hard to handle campaign responses	7.1
For what purpose is digital marketing being employed in your company?
New customer lead generation	84.5%
Brand awareness and recognition	70.7
Improved customer relationships	67.7
Cross-sell and up-sell to existing customers	60.8
Website traffic generation	59.8
Customer education	54.4
Customer support	46.8
Content distribution	45.8
Event promotion	45.1
Product sales	41.6
What are the top three drivers and imperatives for digital marketing in your company?
Low cost of implementation	64.7%
Speed of delivery and customer response	58.3
Measurable ROI	58.1
Reach to large target audience with single campaign	34.3
Effective way to create a dialog with customer	33.8
Simple to implement	30.4
Ease of personalized messaging	21.3
Allows dynamic modification	18.6
Able to integrate with other online programs	17.4
Facilitates customer profiling	15.4

Source: Responsys, Inc.

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