Marketers in the UK expect online and digital marketing to be the area in which marketing spend will increase the fastest, according to the latest Chartered Institute of Marketing’s (CIM) Marketing Trends Survey.
The survey shows that marketers are preparing to up their budgets in this area by 2.7%, with it being smaller companies who are embracing this activity most readily and in this sector an increase of 3.2% is expected.
However, the lion’s share of marketing money is still spent on advertising, which takes over 15% of the budget. Other activities in which marketers are investing the most heavily are field marketing (13%), sales promotion (12.4%) and CRM (12.2%).
The CIM adds that despite all the excitement surrounding the subject of digital communications, most marketers are still only talking the talk when it comes to entering this brave new world.
While just under three-quarters (73%) answered ‘not at all’ when asked how often they used podcasts, 70% said the same when asked about corporate blogs whilst 68% never used mobile marketing, and 61% never used viral marketing.
Companies are now spending around 7.6% of their turnover on marketing, and once again this year, small companies are spending the most (8.6%).
Consequently marketers in larger organisations have most difficulty when it comes to budget negotiations, and 61% of those in companies with a turnover £100 million or more said securing marketing budget was ‘difficult.’
In addition, the survey touched on marketer’s attitudes to the environmental impact their profession has, revealing that whilst the social and environmental impacts of an organisation’s activities are still not a major issue in most companies, the ‘triple bottom line’ which suggests that a companies performance should be judged on social and environmental criteria as well as financial results, is not being ignored.
While two-thirds of marketers taking part in the survey said that financial practices were ‘very important’ within their organisation, a third said that environmental and social practices were a major issue.
Commenting on this, Geoff Hurst of the CIM said; “If we had asked organisations whether the environmental and social implications of their activities were of any consequence only ten years ago, I would have been very surprised if these had been more than a peripheral concern for any but the most foresighted.
“In the future, environmental and social performance will not just be a foot-note on the marketing agenda – they will undoubtedly become a central focus for marketing strategy.”
A recent forecast from OPera Media said that strong UK company profitability will act as the biggest boom to advertising spend in 2007 (see Global Economic Growth To Remain Robust In 2007).
Meanwhile, ZenithOptimedia has forecast that the global ad market will grow 5.4% in 2007, 5.8% in 2008 and 5.3% in 2009, staying ahead of the 5.1% rate it has grown at for the past ten years (see Global Adspend Growth Fuelled By Online).
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