48% of businesses are increasing overall marketing budgets in 2010, and email and social media marketing are the two leading areas of investment at 69% and 59% respectively. Search marketing comes in third at 42%. Conversely, events and direct mail lead the pack in decreased spend at 44% and 42% respectively.
Marketing Program Spending Plans for 2010 (% of Respondents) | ||
Program | Increase Spend | Decrease Spend |
Advertising | 28% | 32% |
Direct mail | 21 | 42 |
Email marketing | 69 | 6 |
Mobile | 22 | 5 |
Public relations | 19 | 12 |
Search (SEO/PPC) | 42 | 7 |
Social media | 59 | 3 |
Tradeshows & events | 20 | 44 |
Other | 7 | 7 |
Source: StrongMail, November 2009 |
Social media marketing is a clear focus for businesses, with 69% of respondents planning to integrate it with their email marketing campaigns in 2010. However, of those who have already integrated the two channels, only 42% are achieving a lift in campaign performance. 35% report no significant lift and another 23% are unable to measure. Respondents identified the top three benefits of social media marketing as:
Bill Wagner, executive vice president of business operations at StrongMail, notes that "... this survey reveals a strong focus on high ROI channels like email and emerging ones like social media... (with) an unprecedented number of companies look to integrate email and social media in 2010..."
Most Important Email Marketing Initiatives in 2010 | |
Initiative | % Ranking Among Top 3 |
Improving performance of campaigns | 59% |
Growing opt-in list | 44 |
Re-engaging inactive subscribers | 28 |
Integrating with social media marketing | 42 |
Integrating with mobile marketing | 19 |
Improving deliverability | 26 |
Reducing costs | 19 |
Integrating into transactional emails | 20 |
Accessing data to increase relevance | 21 |
Improve segmentation and targeting | 46 |
Centralizing on single platform | 11 |
Other | 4 |
Source: StrongMail, November 2009 |
Reported survey highlights include:
For more about StrongMail and the Marketing Trends Study, please go here.
It's been proven the search is the best bang for your Internet marketing buck so the planned decrease in SEO spending puzzles me. I blogged about this:
http://lightbulbinteractive.blogspot.com/2009/10/seo-most-bang-for-your-internet.html
I agree with David...the decrease in spending for SEO doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
And some say that Social Media is "dead"?
On the contrary, it's as relevant as ever!!!
@porchista
I agree, the decrease in search doesn't make much sense, but this is from Strongmail, so what did you expect?
I also love the fact that over half are seeing no lift in campaign performance, and 23% don't even know how to measure it, but everyone has to do it!
Social is the bright shiny object marketers have fallen in love with, but it is limited in scope.
Tread carefully.