With the current economic recession, digital marketing professionals are holding out hope that some of the budget dollars originally slated for traditional marketing will move into the cheaper, more measurable digital medium -- and they just might be in luck.
More than half of the assembled brand buyers surveyed at the iMedia Brand Summit in Coconut Point, Fla. plan to "heavy up" on measurable, ROI-driven advertising strategies. In these dire economic times, if marketers can't determine that a particular tactic demonstrates ROI, then they'll slash it.
While many pundits have predicted that the current doom and gloom would cause marketers to re-embrace older strategies, more than half of the marketers surveyed are still looking to innovate -- carefully spending dollars on ROI-driven new technologies and programs.
But when it comes to customer usage and marketing dollars, what aspects of digital will be the big winner in the coming months? More than half of the brand marketers believe it will be online video (29 percent) or social media (28 percent). But while these brands expect social media to be a winner this year, they're still divided on whether or not they should put their money there. When it comes to investing in blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, 48 percent said they are already spending more than before and will increase their investment this year. Meanwhile 52 percent said they spend personal time on popular social destinations but aren't moving dollars there.
On the staffing front, once again online bucks the current trend. While 18,700 advertising and media jobs were lost in December (according to Advertising Age, February 9, 2009), digital and search gained 800 jobs that same month. But while overall there might be more digital jobs, this growth does not necessarily reach to marketing departments: 60 percent of the marketers surveyed at the iMedia Brand Summit said they don't think digital jobs will continue to grow, and they've had to trim staff.
In contrast, 63 percent of the agencies, publishers, ad networks, researchers and others surveyed expect digital jobs to grow this year and are struggling to fill open positions.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to include additional survey results that came in after press time.
Rich Cherecwich is associate editor, iMedia Connection.
