2009 B-to-B Marketing Priorities

In spite of a challenging economy, one-third of B-to-B marketers plan to increase their budgets in 2009, while only 25 percent plan budget cuts. That is the surprising findings of BtoB Magazine’s 2009 Marketing Priorities and Plans survey. Among all B-to-B companies, the areas earmarked for increases by the largest number of marketers included:

• Email (68.3%)
• Online marketing (66.5%)
• Website work (66.3%)
• Search (50.0%)
• Video (46.6%)
• Social media (46.6%)
• Webcasting (42.9%)

According to the survey, the areas where B-to-B marketers plan the biggest net decreases in budgets include print, broadcast, radio and outdoor.

The top priorities for B-to-B marketers in 2009 are customer acquisition (62.2%), customer retention (20.6%) and brand awareness (12.4%).

The BtoB Magazine article states, “Many traditional b-to-b marketers are shifting more of their marketing dollars online, which costs less than traditional media and delivers trackable results.”

To obtain the data, BtoB Magazine surveyed 213 large B-to-B marketers during the last week of November and the first week of December.