Marketing trends

03d33f4aMarketers are undoubtedly facing some challenges in these tougher economic times.
Is it time to decrease or incease the budget as consumers cut back on spending?.
How much , if any of the budget should be spent on new channels, such as Social media?

A recent marketing survey conducted by Adweek provides some useful insights into what experts in the field are thinking and doing right now. Participants were given a menu of responses to the question, "How will the economic slump most affect advertising?".
The response chosen most often (by 30% of participants) was that marketers will "use better targeted ads to improve return on investment." A smaller number (22%) said that advertisers would spend less. Apparently just about everyone in marketing believes that cutting back on advertising is not an appropriate way to respond to difficult economic conditions.

The Shift to Online Advertising

Not surprisingly,the survey results also showed a strong interest in Internet advertising, with 23% of participants forseeing an acceleration of the trend to on-line advertising.
This is not surprising, given that the audience on-line continues to in in double figures annually.

Despite these results, online advertising still represents a fairly small slice of the advertising pie. According to the latest figures from Advertising Age, Internet advertising receives only about 10% of advertising dollars, compared to more than 40% for all types of TV advertising. The research service eMarketer predicts that Internet advertising will continue to grow at a steady rate, and by 2013 will represent 15% of total spending.

hat Marketing Execs Are Saying

Members of the Marketing Executives Networking Group were recently surveyed by the consulting firm Anderson Analytics to learn what they considered the top marketing trends for 2009.
More than half of those surveyed thought their budgets would decrease because of the ailing economy.
Survey results focused on five trends:

1. Insight and innovation are more valuable than ever. Participants cited the need for more effective market research to communicate the correct message to the right customers.
2. Customer satisfaction and customer retention were cited as the two most important issues for marketers, followed by return on investment, brand loyalty, and segmentation. Apparently marketers are focusing more on keeping the customers they have than on finding new ones.
3. There is less interest in environmental issues. Global warming fell significantly as a topic of interest to marketers. "Green marketing" also lost ground. Marketing executives seem to feel that in tough times these topics take a back seat to economic concerns.
4. Despite the buzz around social media, marketers are "wary and seem to believe that they are overhyped in terms of marketing potential.
5. Boomers are still the most promising target for marketers. Baby boomers may be getting gray, and many are retiring, but they still represent a vast, lucrative market. Some are tech savvy and some are not. The challenge for marketers is to choose a medium and a message that will appeal to such a large, inherently diverse group.