Monday, May 19, 2008

Good Economic News for Marketers


These survey results just in from The CMO Club, an association of over 1,200 CMOs: Direct marketing budgets are not likely to be cut, even in this economic down-turn.

So says the Phoenix Business Journal's release of preliminary survey results on Marketing in a Recession. Know that full results from The CMO Club will be announced Tuesday at their CMO CLUB Summit in NYC

In order to see full results, you'll need to submit a fairly extensive questionnaire to The CMO Club (which I did--just waiting for them to approve my membership). Therefore, no link is provided to the full results. However, this article gives a pretty good synopsis.

Survey: Marketing efforts likely to survive downturn-driven budget cuts.

From the article:
"Seventy-one percent of chief marketing officers in the study do not plan on cutting their company's marketing budget, while only 14 percent said they would.

Other key findings:
  • When asked which budget line items would be cut first, advertising and mass marketing strategies (32 percent) were cited most frequently.
  • Online strategies, such as search engine optimization and online marketing campaigns, were cited as the least likely to be cut, followed by public relations campaigns."
So, let's hope that these CMOs represent marketers-at-large (or at least the companies we work for and the clients we work with!). And, let's help them succeed at keeping those budgets intact, simply by implementing measurable, effective and creative programs!

3 comments:

dmcg said...

Usually those budgets that are tracked and yield quantifiable results survive. That’s the way it is, and probably the way it should be.

I listened to a brand proponent (of which I consider myself to a great extent) say in a recent speech to CMOs that anything strategic cannot be tracked. Meaning that only tactical efforts survive the scrutiny of ROI review.

The speaker may have a point,

But isn’t it expecting a lot of senior management to sign off on millions of dollars of marketing expense without requiring validation of the ROI?

If you are an advocate of awareness advertising, then I suggest you figure out how to track results and determine ROI quickly. Because today, “an intuitive feeling that it works” simply won’t cut it anymore. It’s about time!

Suzanne Ortiz said...

Tedd, I tend to agree with you. But I'd like to put in my 2 cents about what is and what isn't strategic. I believe that programs that can be measured can also be strategic. Something tactical can be part of an overall strategy, too.

I completely agree that awareness folks need to figure out how to track results, and in a way that makes sense.
Suzanne

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.