B2B
Marketers Starting Later, But Better Armed in 2007
The good news is productivity among B2B marketers grew an impressive 10 percent last year, according to new research from International Data Corporation (IDC). This makes you about seven times more efficient than the average U.S. worker. Congrats. Do you feel seven times more appreciated by your CFO? Not likely. This may explain why many of you feel stretched pretty thin these days, and why nearly one in four of you (22%) told us you’re setting your budgets much “later than normal” according to last month’s CPA Marketing Insider reader poll. Here’s another factoid gleaned from the nearly 200 surveys your fellow readers shared with us. Budget-setting seems to be morphing into a year-round process instead of as a one-time annual event. That’s right, not even half of you (45%) are nailing down your marketing budgets in the traditional October-December quarter. Almost a third of you (31%) now complete your marketing budgets in the January-March quarter and 26 percent of you are waiting until the spring or summer quarters. It’s still painful, but at least the pain is more evenly distributed. As we touched on last month, the choices for B2B marketers are more varied than before and hopefully you’re taking extra time to think through your decisions and add effective new weapons to your prospect-hunting arsenal. The good news? Three-fourths of you (73%) have more dollars to work with than last year and 40 percent of you told us your budgets are 10 percent larger than they were the year before. More Budget on the Web As you might expect, the Web will continue to garner a larger share of the budget pie. Overall, 96 percent of you are using Internet advertising and marketing to some degree. Three in five of you (61%) will be increasing your Internet marketing budgets and 35 percent of you will be investing at least 10 percent more on the Web than you did last year. Only five percent of you will be cutting your Web budgets, according to CPA Marketing Insider survey respondents. The number one marketing goal for 2007 is clearly to get more customers and more of the right kind of customers. About 40 percent of you said acquiring customers is your top marketing priority, followed by lead generation (19%). New market growth (15%) is the third highest priority, followed by brand awareness (10%), product penetration (8%), customer retention (4%) and thought leadership (4%). Top marketing priorities for AICPA clients in 2007
READER NOTE: Click here if you’d like to receive an executive summary of last month’s reader survey on Top Marketing Priorities for 2007. Reader Feedback Many of you “Amen’d” us for addressing the challenge of having CFOs and other “bean counters” more actively involved in the marketing process. However, not everyone agreed with us that there’s been too much emphasis on number crunching lately and not enough emphasis on marketing innovation or good story telling (see Online Advertising Analysis Paralysis in our February issue.) “Where I disagree with you is that we DO use the data very effectively,” said Neil Costa, Monster.com’s Director of Online Marketing Alliances, who manages a multi-million dollar online marketing budget. “We measure our conversions to whatever objective we have. That may be a purchase of our product for hiring managers or a new account created by someone who has started a new job search. These are very effective ways to get end results or action that is directly tied to your business goals or even financial results.” Another reader (who wished to remain anonymous) quipped: “Who has time for back-end analysis when we can barely handle the front end?” “The back-end analytics and effectiveness of online advertising campaigns for most organizations is at its infancy,” said Neil Costa. “Having a strong accounting and analytical background has made me a much better marketer.” And that’s not easy. Not only do marketers have more tools at their disposal, but your prospects have more messages competing for their attention across more marketing platforms. Reaching the Multi-Tasking Prospect Kineon Walker, a product development manager at Citrix Online, made a pretty interesting observation at an online marketing Webinar I attended a few weeks ago. “One of the biggest mistakes online marketers make is believing that your prospects are captive,” Walker said. “Let’s face it. We’re in the age of multi-tasking. Can you really be sure that even if you’re reaching the right prospect with the right message at the right time, that they’re really paying 100 percent attention?” That’s why it’s so important to measure the back-end results of your marketing campaigns. It’s not how many clicks or impressions you’re getting to your message. It’s how many of those valued eyeballs are converting to paying (and hopefully repeat) customers. But whatever you do, just get started. There will be plenty of time for analysis. Now, about this invitation one of you wiseguys sent me to your 2006 company Christmas Party. |
According
to new U.S. Department of Commerce research, the average American
worker was 1.4 percent more productive in 2006 than the year before.
That’s better than being 1.4 percent less productive,
but in our industry, would 1.4 percent improvement save your job,
much less your marketing budget? Doubtful.