Marketers to shift spend from direct marketing to social media in 2010

by James Agate

Alterian, the integrated marketing solutions provider, published its annual survey yesterday which revealed that two thirds of marketing professionals are to invest in social media over the next 12 months.

The survey involved over 1000 marketing professionals worldwide and found that 66% of respondents will be investing in social media marketing in the next 12 months. Of those investing in social media 40% said they would be shifting more than a fifth of their traditional direct marketing budget towards funding their social media marketing activities. This supports other statistics from the survey which found that the majority of respondents (67%) feel social media is either ‘increasingly important’ or ‘critical to success’.

David Eldridge from Alterian said, “2010 marks the start of the digital decade for marketing. Untargeted and irrelevant marketing techniques are now redundant and the results of this survey show many in the industry recognise this. The one thing to remember, however, is that investment in Social Media Marketing is futile without adequate measurement.”

That is certainly a key point that all businesses in particular small enterprises need to remember about social media is that it must have a focus, a clear goal and a solid plan before any sort of Twittering, Facebooking or blogging is embarked upon otherwise it can deteriorate into a waste of time and money.

The survey found more than a third (36%) of respondents are investing in social media monitoring and analysis tools. This is a significant percentage considering the maturity of the channel and reflects the growing understanding that a social media marketing strategy needs to be based on listening to customers and prospects and its ROI needs to be measured.

The survey went further to explore the extent to which organisations integrate marketing technologies across their organisation. Almost half of respondents (42%) said they don’t incorporate web analytics data into their customer and email database. “This is a worrying statistic as it shows many organisations are losing any advantage that this valuable actionable insight could give them” adds Eldridge.