Marketing Budgets To Grow Next Year

After a couple of sluggish years, 2003 promises to be a bigger one for advertising and marketing, with companies planning to up their budgets.

This from Patrick Marketing Group, a Calabasas, CA firm that performs quarterly marketing studies. Its most recent is a survey of 250 marketing executives from a variety of large firms. Forty-nine percent say they will increase their marketing budgets next year, while only 19% say they'll decrease it. Of those that will increase it, 32% say they will increase it five to 10%.

"Many people hunkered down to survive through the sluggish economy in 2002," says PMG partner Craig Shields. "The outlook for 2003 appears to be completely different, almost diametrically opposed. Three times as many people anticipate spending increases as those who expect further cutbacks."

Reasons for more spending include a belief in improved economic conditions and a desire to emerge from a period of budget cuts. "Companies that have suffered through budget cuts feel they cannot continue to stay invisible to their customers and prospects," Shields says.

With the increased spending will come a change in the kinds of advertising the companies do, with a stronger emphasis on direct marketing and online marketing. When asked what kinds of marketing programs they will enact next year, 67% of the respondents said direct mail and 61% said e-marketing. "We're moving away from broad-based programs in favor of campaigns that target a more focused set of potential customers," 57% of the survey participants say. Only 11% say they will focus on broad based awareness programs.

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