State of the Marketing Industry

Despite all the economic doom and gloom, there is some good news for the marketing industry. We’ve been finding that over the past quarter months, businesses are holding on to their marketing partners or re-evaluating and exploring smaller agency solutions. Business to consumer marketing has taken a hit, but business-to-business marketing remains solid, with a focus on branding and positioning themselves for success in the year ahead.

In my previous blog post, Opportunity in Crisis, now is the time for marketers to reach out to customers.

Recent industry surveys prove that’s just what’s happening. According to BtoB Magazine’s 2009 Marketing Priorities and Plans Survey of over 200 marketing professionals, even though we are in a recession, nearly one-third (31%) of B-to-B marketers plan to increase their marketing budgets, 44% plan to keep budgets flat and only 25% plan to decrease their budgets. Not surprisingly, the survey also found that the primary goal for most marketers is customer acquisition (62%), followed by customer retention (20%) and brand awareness (12%).

We all know how technology today—easy web access, mobile devices and GPS—makes shopping so easy. Nielsen/NetSurvey/WebVisible research showed that 90% of the consumer transactions (movies, restaurants, apparel, etc.) initiated through online local searches was completed offline. This trend, coupled with the measurability and cost effectiveness of online marketing, makes it easy to see why industry watchers project interactive marketing to be a growth area.

eMarketer and Jupiter forecast digital media will grow 9%-15% percent in 2009. Forrester Research surveyed more than 300 interactive marketers found that 72% of expected to maintain or increase their digital budgets this year. eMarketer estimates the following growth in 2009: online video 45% search 15%, rich media 7%, display ads 7%, email 4% and lead generation 3%.

The challenges of digital technologies combined with deep audience fragmentation have hurt traditional media—newspapers, magazines, television and radio—which are expected to see more decline. According to eMarketer and other sources, newspapers, revenues will drop @ 16% in 2009; radio @ 6% and television spending will drop @ 5%, give or take a few percentage points.

Of course, to keep this in perspective we should be aware how much significantly smaller online budgets have always been in relation to traditional media. The bottom-line: How media is considered, purchased and measured is all being re-examined.

What does this mean for you? The media is hungry, and there are good deals to be found. Your competitors are probably in a worse state than your company. This all translates into less clutter and noise in the marketplace, and lower rates.

Numbers are noticeable: Things are not so bleak. Clean house, get your brand in order, re-think your marketing mix and market aggressively to increase sales.