Larry Bodine Law Marketing Blog

Despite the recession, nearly one-third of business-to-business ("b-to-b") marketers plan to increase their marketing budgets next year, according to BtoB's "2009 Marketing Priorities and Plans" survey.

The recent survey found that 31.1% of b-to-b marketers plan to boost their marketing budgets next year while 43.5% plan to keep budgets flat and 25.4% plan to decrease budgets.

Significantly, of those planning increases, one-quarter intend to raise them by more than 20% and nearly 9% plan increases between 15% and 19%.

Customer acquisition is the top marketing goal for 2009, cited by 62.2% of respondents. Customer retention was cited as the top marketing goal by 20.6%, brand awareness by 12.4% and other marketing goals by 4.8%.

Of the various media platforms b-to-b marketers will use next year, online is a clear winner, with 66.5% of marketers planning to increase their online spending. E-mail tops the list of tactics marketers plan to spend more on, cited by 68.3% of respondents, followed closely by Web
site development (66.3%).

Some traditional media platforms will also see increased spending next year, including direct mail (36.9%), events (31.0%) telemarketing (21.8%) and print (20.6%).

However, while some marketers plan to increase spending on these media, others plan to cut spending. The survey found that 33.2% of marketers plan to cut spending on print; 30.5% will cut spending on events; 25.6% will cut direct mail spending; and 21.3% will cut outdoor advertising
spending.

The complete story, titled "Exclusive survey finds only 25% plan to cut budgets," is available at
http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081208/FREE/812089997/1108/FREE