Social And Email Top Growing Marketing Budgets For 2012

A recent StrongMail survey, conducted by Zoomerang in November, reflects the attitudes of business leaders about their planned marketing budgets, priorities and challenges for 2012, revealing a healthy outlook for marketing budgets with 51% of companies increasing and 41% maintaining current levels.

For the third year in a row, email marketing and social media marketing remain the top targets for increased spend. For the 2011 holiday shopping season, email marketers plan to focus on cross/upsell offers and promotion of in-store events. 

Survey Highlights

• 92% plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in 2012
• 60% plan to increase email marketing budget; 55% social media; 37% mobile/search (tied)
• 45% cite data integration as primary email marketing challenge in 2012; 43% lack of resources/staff; 40% content management
• 48% cite increasing subscriber engagement as top 2012 email marketing initiative; 44% improving segmentation/targeting; 32% growing opt-in email list
• 68% plan to integrate email marketing with social media; 44% with mobile; 17% with search

Email marketing and social media were cited as the top two areas for increased marketing spend. According to the survey, 51% of businesses plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2012, and another 41% plan to maintain current levels.  Only 8% of respondents plan to decrease marketing budgets. Other areas of increased spend included mobile and search. Direct mail and tradeshows are top targets for decreased spend. Read More and /or DOWNLOAD THE PDF