Marketing budgets in flux

摘要

In a downturn, perhaps the most important metric of all is the bottom line, or, in other words, answers to the questions: "What are you spending money on and are these investments paying off?"rnTo that end, BtoB recently spoke to analysts and b-to-b marketers to get a feel for how marketing spending and tactics are evolving in the economic recession.rnWhile marketing budgets are down-as are most departmental budgets these days-spending in some areas for some marketers is actually up. On the other side of the coin, many marketers are using the downturn as an opportunity to reassess, often reducing spending on traditional but less-than-productive activities.rnRecent data from Forrester Research indicates that 50% of the 114 interactive marketers using social media that it surveyed plan to increase social technology spending this year, while only 5% plan to decrease spending. Granted, that's spending on a relatively small base, given that social technologies are new and relatively cheap; but "try to name another marketing investment that's anywhere near this strong in recessionary times," said Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff.