Last week I attended a webinar led by Roy Young, President of MarketingProfs, hosted by Roger Courville of the 1080 Group, LLC, and sponsored by Citrix Online (the GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar folks).  The topic was "B-to-B Marketing in 2009: Trends in Strategies and Spending" - basically an overview of research highlights from a recent study conducted by MarketingProfs and Forrester Research.

I had seen a similar study from MarketingProfs and Forrester from about a year ago, so I was very interested to see what new insights this updated version could provide.  I would say that, for those of us who track the B2B marketing profession and trends pretty closely, there were no huge surprises here.  But it's always interesting to see what a reasonably large cross-section of our peers is thinking.

So here's a snapshot of this year's results.  All I can say is a) Corporate B2B marketers, keep the chinstraps on your hardhats tightened down through at least 2009, and b) "Got digital marketing?"

Study Highlights

  • The study surveyed 656 marketing management professionals across a range of companies.  This year's study was much more heavily weighted towards small companies (less than $20MM in revenues), and smaller marketing budgets (less than $1MM).  As a result, be especially careful when trying to interpret any of the year-over-year data.  MarketingProfs and Forrester have apparently tried to control for some of this where possible, and will provide more details on this aspect of the study later this year.
  • Compared to a year ago (late 2007 survey data), marketers this time around were much more likely to have predicted budget cuts for 2009.  The more optimistic survey respondents from a year ago were often wrong in predicting overall budget increases for 2008, and by the end of last year, reality had set in... leading to much more sober predictions going into 2009. 
  • Among those predicting a marketing budget decrease for 2009, the average predicted falloff was 22%.  Among those predicting an increase for 2009, the average predicted increase was 31%.  Medium to large companies surveyed were much more likely to report larger projected budget cuts for 2009 - probably since they can take the axe to a broader range of more expensive programs.
  • The top three behavioral responses to current economic conditions have been to:
    • Shift program budget dollars among alternatives
    • Freeze hiring and/or lay off temp workers
    • React to budget cuts that were deeper than expected
  • The focus of marketing's efforts is sharpening, leading to better targeting to more specific audiences.  Perhaps a natural byproduct of fewer discretionary program dollars to spread around.
  • The top five marketing tactics used are, in descending order:
    • Company web site
    • Email
    • PR
    • Tradeshows and conferences (i.e., live, in-person events)
    • Search marketing
  • In terms of what consumes most of the actual marketing budget dollars, the five 'most expensive' tactics are, in descending order:
    • Tradeshows and conferences
    • TV advertising
    • Inside sales / telemarketing
    • Direct mail
    • Print advertising
  • Traditional marketing tactics still dominate overall B2B marketing budgets, but digital tactics are increasingly being woven into the overall fabric, at less outside spend per tactic.
  • Web 1.0 (e.g., email and search) and 2.0 tactics (mostly "social media" elements) are holding steady or increasing in terms of budget allocation, while traditional marketing channels are in decline.
  • 53% of B2B marketers now claim to be integrating some form of Web 2.0 marketing (blogs, forums, etc.).
  • In addition to the corporate web presence, search engine marketing, email, and webinars were pegged as especially likely for budget increases.  Spending on online video, podcasts, and other rich media was also expected to grow.
  • With very few exceptions, digital marketing tactics were rated higher in terms of overall effectiveness, while traditional channels were rated lower.
  • The traditional tactics of executive events (e.g., executive breakfasts) and inside sales were still seen as (relatively) strong lead generators.  Face-to-face and voice-to-voice still matter in B2B.  I say "relatively" here since virtually no individual tactic was judged by more than half of the survey respondents to be highly effective for lead gen purposes.
  • Interestingly, some of the "old standbys" of B2B PR efforts - technology and business publications, and industry analyst firms - were rated as less important to the overall marketing mix going forward.

The report predicts that B2B marketers this year must:
  • Be more prepared than ever to measure and track effectiveness of various tactics.  The concept of measuring marketing ROI is not new by any stretch, but is getting more attention than ever now given the corporate directive to "do more with less, and make it count."
  • Make the most of the opportunity to leverage a deeper understanding of customer needs, afforded by the application of interactive/social media.  Can you tap into some customer insights that your sales team hasn't brought back to the table for discussion yet?  If so, you've got a proof point that your efforts are adding value.
  • Respond to the continuing B2B paradigm shift - "from seller control to buyer control."
  • Explore and learn from best practices for tactical implementation.

In summary, I felt the hour I invested in the webinar was well spent, even though the information presented was not terribly surprising in terms of trends.  As a bonus, the good people of Citrix and MarketingProfs were kind enough to provide the report to webinar attendees, so I was able to work on this summary blog post with more than just my hand-written webinar notes available.

Here's the Forrester summary and pitch for their full report at Forrester.com (two related links):

http://is.gd/yCUP

http://is.gd/xu4Z


Also, a good person to follow on Twitter for this kind of content is Forrester analyst Laura Ramos:

http://twitter.com/lauraramos


And for MarketingProfs content in general: 

http://twitter.com/MarketingProfs


Your comments and additional insights are welcome.  Do you agree or disagree with any of these highlighted findings?  Are you seeing anything markedly different in your business, or with your marketing services clients?