Changes in budget affecting areas of marketing investment

In evaluating your overall choices, we used a fairly standard list of traditional and more recent marketing channels, including: print, trade shows and events, direct mail, radio, press releases, video, TV, online display, email marketing, SEO/PPC, social media, mobile etc.

On the whole, reported behaviors were largely in line with not-so-recent trends across a number of industries: print is down and digital is up.

Direct mail, TV Advertising and Public relations are not used by most, and will also some of the greatest level of decrease in 2015
Social Media, SEO/PPC and Email marketing will in contrast see an increase in budget allocation and focus in 2015
Video will see the largest increase in “Start using” and a strong increase in use by those already using, reflecting the overall up trend in use of dynamic content
Interestingly, Radio advertising is also enjoying a regain of interest and a strong usage base among responders
Print media and Trade Shows will experience the largest decrease in use in 2015, though overall, trade shows will still slightly grow

Chart 4a – Changes in marketing investment as a result of budget changes: gainers — Changes in marketing investment as a result of budget changes: gainers

Chart 4b – Changes in marketing investment as a result of budget changes: losers — Changes in marketing investment as a result of budget changes: losers

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You can find other installments of our study on Key Marketing Concerns for 2015 here.

Marketing budgets continue to rise in 2015

From a budget perspective, marketing continue to enjoy a strong position, with 49.36% reporting budget increases in percentage terms, and over 40% reporting no change from 2014. Only about 10% will see a decrease in funding:

Percentage trends will not however translate into dollar increases for everyone.

Slightly over 43% reported they would in fact have more money to play with, or 6% fewer than reported an increase in percentage terms. Similarly, about 12% will actually see a decrease in real spend, or 2% more than reported a decrease in percentage terms.

This indicates that marketing budgets may not always evolve in accordance to overall company budgets. Overall budgets can go up but if the relative marketing share stays the same or decrease its growth, this could lead to fewer dollars in the bank.

Key Marketing concerns for 2015

Last week we posted the first section of our 8 part series on Key Marketing Trends for 2015. Today’s installment explores marketers key concerns for the coming year

Key concerns to Marketing’s ability to deliver value to your organization in 2015

We asked about a number of potential concern areas. They were:

Measure, prioritize and prove the ROI of marketing channels and initiatives;
Analyze big data (behavioral, customer interaction etc.) to help focus Marketing efforts and grow the business;
Accurately identify and target audience(s);
Create fresh, innovative content to educate and engage with target audience(s);
Harness the promise of social networks to generate measurable value for the business;
Quickly anticipate social media and consumer trends, and react rationally to stay ahead of the curve;
Find the right talent and expertise to build a world class Marketing organization;
Get support from IT to ensure Marketing has the right technology solutions in place, at the right time.

All topics received significant attention, but three of them in particular scored an aggregate concern rate greater than 80% (adding together the “Concern”, “Significant Concern” and “Losing Sleep Over” categories).

Interestingly, these topics were aligned with conference keynotes and breakout session themes discussed at IMPACT14, and reflecting our members opinions about:

Leveraging Big Data (82.76% concerned)
Accurately identifying target audiences (83.91% concerned) Creating of fresh, innovative content (81.61% concerned)
The overall degree of concern across all topics was high, as every one of them came in above 70%.

Despite an increasing level of maturity, the marketing function continues to feel the pressure of ever-evolving social media channels, audiences, and behaviors.

The pace of evolution is so rapid that it is difficult if not impossible to adequately anticipate trends, and react fast enough once they are understood and confirmed.

The good news however is that marketing budgets seem to continue to increase, and should allow for investments in current and emerging solutions.

Internet Marketing Trends for 2015 – Part 1

Moving forward – Unexpected trends in Internet Marketing

The IMA Research Lab was introduced during IMPACT14 last month in Las Vegas. The Lab was created around IMA’s central mission to provide value to our members through leading-edge perspectives on current and emerging Internet marketing trends, best practices and related technology solutions.

Immediately prior to IMPACT14, we published an introductory survey designed to identify some of the key areas of concern for our membership. Interestingly, your feedback ahead of the conference closely mirrored some of the key topics our keynote speakers and breakout session presenters chose to focus on.

With the conference behind us, our focus has now turned to the season ahead, and the opportunities that lie before us in 2015 and beyond. The answers you provided in this initial survey are summarized below, and should reinforce for you some of the key topics discussed during IMPACT14.

Key marketing concerns 2015