You need to know: Drake Morton
Email Marketing Budgets Up,
Ad Budgets Down
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
According to the June “2009 Marketing Trends Survey” by StrongMail Systems, even in the midst of the current recession, 42% of nearly 1,000 global business leaders polled plan to increase eMail marketing budgets in 2009, and an additional 43% plan to maintain current levels.
Only 15% of polled businesses expect to see a decrease in customer sales in the second half of the year, which is a dramatic improvement over the 37% who responded similarly in StrongMail’s December 2008 survey.
According to the report, businesses currently project that 34% of customers will spend more in the second half of 2009, versus only 19% in the December survey, while an additional 31% project that customers will spend the same.
Planned investment in email marketing has also increased, with 81% of businesses planning to increase budgets targeting this channel, versus 73% in December 2008. Additionally, social media has emerged as a significant focus for increased investment, as reported by 58% of businesses.
Advertising and tradeshows were again singled out as the top targets for budget cuts:
78% of    businesses decreasing budgets are targeting advertising
58% are also looking at tradeshows
This represents a steep increase from the December survey results of 29% and 19% respectively.
The report says that increasing email relevancy and personalization remain top priorities for the latter half of 2009 for 77% of the businesses polled. The top three email marketing initiatives identified for the latter half of the year reflect a desire to improve relevancy, with 66% of respondents looking to increase the performance of their campaigns, and 52% looking to improve segmentation and targeting. Growing their opt-in list attracted the third highest response at 45%
Survey Highlights
85% of    businesses plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in the second half    of 2009
34% of    businesses expect customers to spend more; 31% to spend more
15% to    spend less
81% of    companies increasing budgets are doing so in email; 58% in social media
78% of    businesses decreasing budgets are cutting advertising; 58% in tradeshows
77% of    businesses plan to increase email relevancy
Bill Wagner, executive vice president of business operations at StrongMail Systems, concludes “The fact that planned investments in email marketing have actually increased in the past six months, at the expense of more traditional marketing channels, speaks to email’s status as the most economical and effective tool in a direct marketer’s tool box…”