Spending is on the minds of chief marketing officers in America’s corporations, and that may be good news for radio. A survey finds that nearly two-thirds of those surveyed by the CMO Council say they will boost marketing spend in the coming year.
Even as the pandemic’s impact continues to be felt, just one in ten marketers said they plan to cut back budgets this year. Instead, a surprising 65% will increase their marketing spending in 2021 with a quarter of those surveyed expecting their budgets to remain steady.
In the report, the CMO Council says that not all additional spending will be on media buys. A majority (69%) of those surveyed said they plan to allocate more of their budget to marketing technology to better target their audiences with relevant campaigns. And they are taking the learnings from the past year and focusing their spend on key areas that will help embrace automation and a digital-first environment.
The report said that many of those surveyed said marketers are focused on improving operations. “They are more confident in areas like pricing and promotions, media buying and social media voice and creativity, demonstrating that while they feel their marketing brand, voice and value proposition is strong. Meanwhile, their ability to better understand the customer journey, automate and engage is lacking,” the report says.
One of the factors driving marketing executives are changes adopted by consumers during the past year. The survey found that as business as usual went out the door, there has been a more urgent need to go all-digital, regardless of whether the targeted customer was a consumer (B2C) or business (B2B).
“Companies that adapted to life revolving around the home have seen major success over the last several months. And many of these trends will stick around” the report says. It notes a recent CMO Council consumer poll found 21% of consumers said they no longer had a need for in-person interactions. That is up from 10% who said the same thing in 2019.
"The most relevant and compelling areas of conversation among our members right now are all about ROI, efficiency and revenue optimization," said CMO Council Executive Director Donovan Neale-May. "This means being more focused on digital marketing transformation, creating value from customer data, and upgrading customer engagement and experience."
The online survey was fielded in December and early January among 200 marketing executives.
Download a summary to the Getting It Done in 2021 report HERE.
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