According to the June "2009 Marketing Trends Survey" by StrongMail Systems, even in the midst of the current recession, 42% of nearly 1,000 global business leaders polled plan to increase
marketing budgets in 2009, and an additional 43% plan to maintain current levels.
Programs
Planned For Increased Spending in 2009 (% of respondents) |
Program | Intend to Increase Spending |
Email marketing | 81% |
Social media | 58 |
Search | 52 |
Advertising | 36 |
Public
relations | 28 |
Trade shows | 13 |
Other | 12 |
Source: StrongMail, July 2009 |
Only 15% of polled businesses expect to see a decrease in customer sales in the second half of the year, which is a dramatic improvement over the 37% who responded
similarly in StrongMail's December 2008 survey.
Sales Expectations in Second Half
of 2009 (% of Respondents) |
Expectation | % Sharing
Attitude |
Expect customers to spend more | 34% |
Expect customers to spend about the same in 2nd half | 31 |
Not sure | 18 |
Expect customers to spend less | 15 |
Source: StrongMail, July 2009 |
According to the report, businesses currently project that 34% of customers will spend
more in the second half of 2009, versus only 19% in the December survey, while an additional 31% project that customers will spend the same.
Planned investment in email marketing has also
increased, with 81% of businesses planning to increase budgets targeting this channel, versus 73% in December 2008. Additionally, social media has emerged as a significant focus for increased
investment, as reported by 58% of businesses.
Advertising and tradeshows were again singled out as the top targets for budget cuts:
- 78% of businesses decreasing budgets are
targeting advertising
- 58% are also looking at tradeshows
This represents a steep increase from the December survey results of 29% and 19% respectively.
The report
says that increasing email relevancy and personalization remain top priorities for the latter half of 2009 for 77% of the businesses polled. The top three email marketing initiatives identified for
the latter half of the year reflect a desire to improve relevancy, with 66% of respondents looking to increase the performance of their campaigns, and 52% looking to improve segmentation and
targeting. Growing their opt-in list attracted the third highest response at 45%.
Most
Important email Marketing Initiatives in 2009 (% of Respondents Checking) |
Initiative | % Reporting Important |
Improving email performance | 66% |
Improve segmentation and targeting | 52 |
Growing opt-in email list | 45 |
Integrating social media and email marketing | 34 |
Re-engaging inactive subscribers | 31 |
Improving deliverability | 28 |
Integrating marketing into
transactional emails | 22 |
Accessing data from other systems to increase relevance | 21 |
Centralizing email onto one platform | 15 |
Source: StrongMail, July 2009 |
Survey Highlights
- 85% of businesses plan to increase or
maintain marketing spend in the second half of 2009
- 34% of businesses expect customers to spend more; 31% to spend more
- 15% to spend less
- 81% of companies
increasing budgets are doing so in email; 58% in social media
- 78% of businesses decreasing budgets are cutting advertising; 58% in tradeshows
- 77% of businesses plan to
increase email relevancy
Bill Wagner, executive vice president of business operations at StrongMail Systems, concludes "The fact that planned investments in email marketing have
actually increased in the past six months, at the expense of more traditional marketing channels, speaks to email's status as the most economical and effective tool in a direct marketer's tool
box..."
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