Marketing Survey Insight of 200 Multi-National Organizations

Just this year, we went ahead to survey 200 professionals from the top-performing multi-national organizations to gather information about the marketing trends for the annual plans. We were interested to find out where the budgets are going to be allocated, and what tactics are working best for these organizations. Let’s take a look at the results so you can figure out what direction you will move in to remain competitive and up to pace with the trends.

Traditional Media Budgeting

The research results indicate that 65% of organizations expect their event marketing agency budgets to increase. This can be interpreted in different ways because some companies are better at making their budgets efficient. If you know how to spend your money in the right ways, and you know how to move towards digital tools, then you won’t need to increase your budget in order to get better results from your marketing efforts. Interestingly only 36% of organizations plan to decrease their budget for print advertising. This means that more organizations are moving away from traditional forms of advertisement, and into online methods. This insight is reinforced by the fact that 41% of organizations will decrease their budget for TV and Radio. This may be due to product differences and the consumer psycho-graphic differences for those products. So you would need to conduct an evaluation of where your consumers are located in order to know whether you should move your budget away from TV and Radio.

Digital Marketing Budgeting

Although digital advertising packs more of a punch with personalization and data aggregation, it can be somewhat more expensive as an initial investment into the systems, but the payoff is proportionately larger. 48% of organizations plan to increase the implementation of banner ads, and with the use of programmatic media buying agencies, these same organizations can drastically improve the way that their advertisements target consumers.

With new technology, consumer behavior changes and it pays to understand their habits. One example of this is the move away from PC to tablets and mobile technology use. This trend forced 68% of organizations to increase their budget for mobile marketing. This can be a good move because mobile technology, apps, and responsive web design are making it easier for consumers to move through the sales process right from a CTA down to the final purchase in check out. These factors make it effective to invest in mobile marketing programs. In accord with mobile marketing, organizations are optimizing their email marketing for mobile platforms. 68% of organizations plan to increase the budget for email marketing campaigns. We believe this is on the incline due to the entry of more competitors into various industries.

SEO and Social

Although Google is getting stricter with its algorithms, making it difficult for search marketers to trick the SERP, this makes it better for marketers with products that deliver the right value. This change in the algorythm will weed out the low-quality competitors, and improve the visibility of brands that know how to work with the new rules. The trick is to get the high-quality talent behind your SEO. We think that the increase in SEO budgets is due to the fact that organizations are feeling the penalties of bad SEO, and moving their budget to higher quality SEO efforts in order to get their website to the top listings on Google. Although properly executed organic SEO efforts will take time to show results, the changes will last longer and will lead to more site visitors. So it would be a good move to make the right investment in the right people and strategies.

In addition, social media marketing company budgets are increasing by 86%. This may be caused by the value that consumers are placing on relationships with peers and influencers. Today consumers rely on reviews and the opinions of peers to make purchase decisions much more than web articles and product descriptions. The influencers are seen as credible sources, while the communications of the brand are becoming less trusted.

So investing in a better presence on social channels will increase your SEO efforts because it will increase your visibility and support the SEO team with social signals. Social media is all about developing relationships and fostering a community bond that will surround your brand and generate evangelists that influence other consumers. It is up to you to develop the community, engage consumers, and encourage interactions. You can also use new technology to create user-generated content that serves as an advertisement created by consumers for their peers. This is the most trusted form of endorsement that is emerging today.

If you ever have a question for us about what you can do to increase the efficiency of your budget, we are simply an email or a call away.