What’s your marketing outlook for 2008?
It’s a new year! Are you ready? Given the results released by the CMO Council in their second annual Marketing Outlook Survey on Monday (1/14), it’s time to hit the ground running! This fascinating survey of 825 marketing executives from around the world covers companies of all sizes, industries, and customer targets (B2B, B2C and hybrids).
The results provide insight on the usual suspects (If you are interested in more details, you can download the Executive Summary for free.):
- Expected changes in marketing expenditures (They’re not going up a lot, but they’re also not going down, thankfully!)
- Agency turn-over reasons and rates
- Marketers’ biggest sources of aggravation
- Trusted sources of information and insight
However, in addition, the results indicate that we are seeing real traction in the area of marketing sciences (research, analytics, and measurement):
- Looking back at 2007, marketers reported that one of the top achievements was focusing heavily on using customer data and analytics to provide better targeting and effectiveness.
- Looking to 2008, more than half say their top challenge is quantifying and measuring the value of marketing programs and investments. Marketers are keen on improving the accountability of the marketing organization and plan to implement marketing ROI and/or resource allocation capabilities, in order to achieve that goal. In fact, 34% of these marketers are planning to introduce a formal ROI tracking system.
But, I was shocked by the stats that drive those achievements and challenges:
- Almost 55% of these companies do not track or measure their marketing expenditures in any way or have almost no way to connect their marketing efforts to actual business results.
- Only 7% conduct the rigorous analyses needed to document the actual impact of marketing on revenue and profit.
In an age where we have more data than we can possibly use (and are generating more every second), this seems a crime! (But, then again, I guess I’m biased…)
However, I do take heart in the fact that Marketing Sciences is covered in 3 of the 12 areas where marketers expect to allocate their dollars in 2008:
- Strategy and branding
- Events and trade shows
- Operations
- Direct marketing (including telemarketing, mailings, email)
- Sales support
- Online marketing (web site, SEO, SEM, viral, podcasts/blogs, communities)
- Advertising
- Market Research
- Systems (dashboards, CRM, etc.)
- Merchandising and promotions
- Public and analyst relations
- Customer data integration and analytics
So, I’m curious – do these results echo what is happening in your organizations? Do you agree with the achievements in 2007? Do you find yourself with the same priorities for 2008? If only I had the actual questionnaire they used for this research…I’d submit it to you all, to see if you are in agreement!
