The Times, They Are A' Changin': New Marketing Budgets

A really great article from Research Brief shows interesting trends for marketing budgets planned for 2011.  It's looking good for marketing next year -- at least half of businesses polled plan to increase their advertising budgets.  For the second year in a row, email marketing and social media marketing are expected to be the top targets for increased spending.  Here are the highlights from Strongmail's late November survey:

• 93% of businesses plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in 2010
• 41% of business cite lack of resources/staff as primary email marketing challenge in 2011; 41% data integration; 36% email deliverability
• 52% of businesses cite increasing subscriber engagement as top 2011 email marketing initiative; 49% improving segmentation/targeting; 43% integrating email and social media
• 65% of businesses plan to increase marketing budget for email; 57% social media; 41% search
• 71% of businesses plan to integrate email and social media in 2010

These numbers are very encouraging, indicating that email and social media marketing are still king in the marketing arena.  Another interesting stat claims respondents name lack of resources or staff to be the biggest marketing challenge in 2011 -- this opens up the job market for talented direct marketing individuals.

Strong goals for 2011 seem to be increasing subscriber engagement, improving segmentation and targeting, and integrating social media and email.  Social media may be the new kid on the block, but it's here to stay -- and interestingly enough, it's not knocking email marketing off its throne, either.  Business leaders know the two will have to play well together in 2011 for fully effective marketing.

You can read the survey and accompanying article in their entirety here on Mediapost.