BtoB, the magazine for marketing strategists, just updated their “2009 Marketing Priorities and Plans” to reflect some mid-year trends. You can download the report here.
Our own straw poll came to the same albiet unscientific conclusion. Marketing spend in the second half of 2009 will be up. Online marketing spend will go up. Direct marketing spend will go up.
We’re feeling pretty good about the direction we’ve taken as an interactive marketing firm. Three years ago we decided to focus our efforts on what we saw as two converging trends in B2B marketing–an increase in online and direct marketing spend. Hey, sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
In her BtoB article, Ms Maddox asked Jim Prothe of Model Metrics to comment on this trend.
“We really didn’t face any significant budget cuts this year, but there is much more scrutiny placed on what we’re spending on and what we’re getting for it,” Mr Prothe said.
Mr Prothe’s right on the money.
Marketers need to deliver results in the downturn, but shouldn’t that be true regardless of economic climate. Number of leads, cost per opportunity, cost per lead, cost per target, impression, click-through, touch and on and on are all the product of a down economy and we hope they stay.
Last year our customers went to trade shows. This year they are hosting virtual events. Last year they sent team members to thought-leadership conferences. This year they fired those same people.
The moral of the story is make metrics your new best friend. Marketing will no longer be a safe haven for Liberal Arts majors, but a stat-heavy job that will justify its existence at the end of every program and every quarter. Turn your marketing department into a revenue center, because if you remain a cost center you’ll never get the budget you need to justify your existence. No amount of money fed to a cost center will get credit for generating revenue.
Start with highly targeted direct marketing campaigns that drive web traffic and demand directly to the sales team. Put the onus on sales to close when you set them up.
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