Despite economic concerns, businesses will continue to invest in key marketing programs in the coming year, according to a survey from StrongMail Systems Inc.
Results show that 51% of respondents plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2009 to focus on programs that yield a higher return on investment such as e-mail and search engine marketing while many will decrease spending on costly, less targeted programs like advertising and trade shows.
The survey also found that only 37% of those polled expect to see a decrease in sales in 2009 due to current economic conditions while 22% said their customers will spend about the same in 2009 as in 2008; and 19% think their customers will spend more next year.
The online survey polled 949 marketing, information technology, e-commerce, sales and management executives earlier this month.
