Three-quarters of manufacturing companies will increase their online marketing budgets in 2006, including search engine marketing and e-mail campaigns, according to an annual survey of B-to-B marketers.
The survey, conducted among marketing executives at more than 220 U.S. manufacturers by SVM E-Business Solutions, found that 78% said they will
The survey found that 78% plan on increasing the amount they spend on their company Web site in 2006. Sixty percent of respondents said they will increase budgets for e-mail marketing during the year, and 48% said they will hike spending on search engine marketing. By contrast, 32% said they would increase budgets for direct mail during the year, 29% said they would boost magazine ad spending, and 28% plan to spend more for trade shows.
Fifty-one percent of marketers polled said they would pay for the increase in online marketing by growing their overall marketing spend. But 27% said they will defray the cost of increased online investment with both a budget increase and cuts in offline spending, while 16% plan to pay for the digital initiative solely by reducing offline marketing.
Of those who plan to cut back on offline marketing, 67% say they will cut back on magazine ads, 52% will reduce spending for direct mail, and 37% will lower budgets for trade shows.
E-mail was considered to be most effective at educating prospects and customers and less at generating sales leads. Forty-six percent of respondents rated e-mail “very effective” at education, while onley 21% believe the channel is “very effective” at drumming up leads.
In terms of search engine marketing, almost half of those surveyed said their companies use online directory listings; 36% say their Web sites are optimized to appear in natural search results, and 28% do pay-per-click advertising. Respondents said they planned to increase their companies’ efforts in all those areas over the next 12 to 18 months, bringing directories up to 58%, optimization to 47%, and PPC ads to 36%.
