I’ll start with the good news. All signs point to a robust budget season for marketers for 2014. From Forrester to Forbes, countless headlines and reports predict that marketers’ coffers will soon be overflowing. Here’s a sampling of the good tidings:
- Forrester Research published results from a study conducted in tandem with the Business Marketing Association that examined CMOs’ budgetary expectations. According to the report, released this January, marketing budgets at B2B companies are predicted to increase 6% in 2014, correlating to 4% of company revenue.
The breakdown of 2014 marketing budgets from the study showed events, digital marketing, and content marketing getting the greatest spending privileges (behind the nebulous “other” category).
- The 2014 Marketing Trends Survey conducted by StrongView reported that 90% of North America-headquartered companies plan to either increase (46%) or maintain (47%) their marketing budgets over the course of the year.
And where exactly is that money going? The top five marketing categories with the highest projected 2014 spending increases were email marketing, social media, search (paid and organic), online display ads, and mobile marketing. Unsurprisingly, print advertising looks poised to take the biggest budgetary hit in 2014 according to this survey, with nearly a third of respondents reporting plans to decrease spending.
- A separate study from Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud titled the 2014 State of Marketing collected data from global marketers about their strategies and budgets for the upcoming year. This study also found comparable budgetary bulges predicted for 2014, with a reported 98% of marketers increasing or maintaining their 2014 budgets.
The highest -budgeted categories were again favorable to digital marketers, including data analysis, marketing automation, email marketing, social media marketing, and content management.
- Last fall, Adobe conducted a study among U.S. marketers titled Digital Distress: What Keeps Marketers Up at Night?, which also found that 90% of respondents expect to either invest more or maintain their budget for digital channels and programs, digital marketing technologies, and staff with digital expertise.
So overall, it seems like marketers should have a spring in their step this year, with budgets on the rise. So what’s the bad news? Well, in discussing the same Forrester report cited above, Forrester VP and senior analyst Laura Ramos reported to AdAge that the rush of money to marketing technology over communication and program spending stems from competitive pressure:
“If your competitors are doing it and you’re not, they’re going to be more nimble and have more access to data and analytics. It’s going to let them figure out a strategy and make changes faster that you.”
The StrongView Marketing Trends study above also found that marketers’ key challenges showed a greater diversity in 2014 than in the previous year, with a particular focus on issues of “data quality and latency.”
And remember the optimistic budgetary results from the Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud study? Marketing consultant and author Jay Baer met the study’s findings with skepticism on his website, convinceandconvert.com, noting that “the most extraordinary statistic in this report is that marketers appear to be almost universally bullish on digital marketing, and are planning to throw gobs of cash at every conceivable digital tactic.” He went on to suggest that beneath this influx of cash, marketers may be more naive than ever about their own strategies:
“I believe that marketing has grown in complexity and opportunity at an unprecedented rate for five years, to the point that many marketers do not really know what works, or what may work in the future. We have more marketing capability and capacity than ever, but paradoxically less certainty than ever. It’s like an expensive game of musical chairs, with each seat comprised of a different type of digital marketing savior. It’s no wonder then that the number one category of increase in marketing budgets in 2014 is ‘Data and Analytics’ with 61% of responding marketers planning to boost budgets there.”
And the last – and perhaps most unsettling – tiding of uncertainty from these same reports of budgets on the rise came again from Adobe’s “Digital Distress: What Keeps Marketers Up at Night?” The study revealed a staggering crisis of confidence in digital marketing, with only 48% of digital marketers responding that they feel highly proficient at digital marketing. And that’s the response rate for digital marketers specifically! Here is a sampling of more results from the survey:
If both sides of these studies are correct, then it appears 2014 will be a year of increased digital marketing spending by digital marketers who are fearful of their own ineffectiveness. Is this a case of zeitgeist spending, with marketers wallpapering over their insecurities with money? And if so, where is this brewing marketing insecurity coming from? Based on the studies cited here, it could be stemming from:
- lack of proper training, or repercussions from an industry-wide creed of the power of learning on the job (According to Adobe’s study, most digital marketers don’t have formal training; 82% learn on the job)
- pressure on performance and competitive positioning, as Forrester’s Linda Ramos cited (According to Adobe’s study, 68% of marketing professionals feel more pressured to show return on investment on marketing spend in 2014.)
- or simply low self-esteem due to data overload, as cited in the StrongView Marketing Trends study (Again, according to the Adobe study, only 9% of respondents strongly agree with the statement “I know our digital marketing is working,” but paradoxically, 81% of marketers agreed with the statement “Marketing has value and that value can be measured.”)
We at TrackMaven, of course, believe in our product, so we feel it is a part of the solution to the data-driven anxieties facing marketers – or at the very least, a tool that can help arm marketers with the competitive intelligence and proactive marketing insight they need for effective marketing strategies. But we would love to hear from others in the industry.
What do you think are the causes, potential solutions, or tactics to address this modern marketer’s paradox, where greater marketing capabilities and doubt are appearing in equal measure? We’d love to hear your thoughts on Twitter or Google+.