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CMO Survey Confirms Online Still Growing

For quite some time now Internet marketers have experienced unbridled growth in the need and use of the medium. That growth recently has been threatened by the down economy and there has been impact across the board. For the most part the Internet marketing industry has had the good fortune of just seeing slowing growth. Many in the industry bristle at the thought of low double digit growth but in this environment getting greedy can be an unwise choice.

The CMO Survey , a poll of 581 U.S. marketing executives conducted in February 2009. The survey was conducted by professor Christine Moorman of Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in conjunction with the American Marketing Association and its findings are quite interesting.

• 59 percent of marketers are less optimistic about the economy than they were one quarter ago, a reduction from the 77 percent of respondents who reported a decrease in optimism during the August 2008 CMO survey
• Marketing spending is expected to grow by only 0.5 percent over the next 12 months, with a 7 percent decrease in traditional advertising and 10 percent increases in both Internet marketing and new product introductions . Business-to-consumer marketers will make the most significant shifts to the Internet, for both product and service advertising.

“The observed shift is part of a broader movement to the Web and social media as key ways to reach customers. However, it also reflects marketers’ hopes for improving return on marketing investment with a cheaper and more effective set of tools,” Moorman said.

The rest of the survey deals with the fact that lower prices will drive sales as well as new product development and market development. There appears to be less risk aversion despite the tough economic climate.

All in all though there is less doom and gloom than there has been in the recent past. Since this survey is actually from this month it’s a nice change of pace rather than old statistics that many people like to trot out as evidence. So once again the Internet side of marketing is poised for growth. Let’s do ourselves a favor this time though. Let’s take ANY growth as a positive sign versus getting upset at not enough growth. No one is in position to look at growth these days and be disappointed.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26TH, 2009 BY FRANK REED

 

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