Online Spending Now at Half of Business Marketers Budgets

The other day in our blog, we talked about 2009 media spending and the planned increase for evolving media. Well, another article now says that the migration of communication and media spending from traditional media to online has accelerated to where now nearly half (47%) is spent on online marketing tools today.

The survey, conducted jointly by Hearst Electronics Group and Goldstein Group Communications (GGC), was done in August-September 2008 with 99 b-to-b marketing executives throughout North America. Given the small sample size, we need to be a little careful with the findings. But,
they can provide some directional market intelligence.

The findings indicate that while traditional media still play a key role in marketing and brand-building, online spending for webcasts, search engine marketing and generating online content are now seen as primary drivers of branding and lead generation for many companies.

Some key findings are:
- Online tactics account for 47% of spending - this includes web development, search engine marketing (organic and pay-per-click), webcasts, email marketing, online video and social media. The last two are expected to grow rapidly in the next couple of years.

- In b-to-b, print advertising is still the single largest program in the budget.

- Lead quality may be driving the switch to online. Web sites and search engines are considered the best source of leads. And online and trade shows appear to be the most important sources of quality leads.

Joel Goldstein, President of GGC, said, "In this environment, many budget choices in 2009 will be based on what's 'nice to have' versus what we 'have to have.' Programs that are proven to generate the highest quality leads, and that are easiest to track to a lead or sales conversion, will end up as the winners."

Some of the more popular traditional media were trade shows at 17%, print at 11% and direct mail at 6% of budgets. So, these will continue to be used, but may have to undergo tougher scrutiny in these economic times and compared to the performance of some online tools.

These findings indicate the importance of brand-building and strong brand recognition on the Internet as well as in more traditional media. They also point to the importance of learning, for your company, what online marketing tools are available and how they can help you grow your businessand grow your brand.

It's an exciting time in marketing and branding, but there will be change. You just have to know how to take advantage of it.