Social Media to become focus for marketers in
2010
Alterian annual survey
finds that two thirds of marketing professionals are to invest in
social media over the next 12 months
London – 21 January 2010 – Today Alterian
(LSE: ALN) released the results of their seventh annual survey. The
sample covered 1068 marketing professionals worldwide and found
that 66 percent of respondents will be investing in Social Media
Marketing (SMM) in the next 12 months. Of those investing in SMM 40
percent said they would be shifting more than a fifth of their
traditional direct marketing budget towards funding their SMM
activities. This supports other statistics from the survey which
found that the majority of respondents (67 percent) feel social
media is either ‘increasingly important’ or ‘critical to
success’.
Commenting on the survey results Alterian CEO,
David Eldridge, said, “2010 marks the start of the digital decade
for marketing. Untargeted and irrelevant marketing techniques are
now redundant and the results of this survey show many in the
industry recognise this. The one thing to remember, however, is
that investment in Social Media Marketing is futile without
adequate measurement.”
The survey found more than a third (36
percent) of respondents are investing in social media monitoring
and analysis tools. This is a significant percentage considering
the maturity of the channel and reflects the growing understanding
that a social media marketing strategy needs to be based on
listening to customers and prospects and its ROI needs to be
measured. Eldridge continues, “Without the adequate investment in
listening and measurement tools it renders any anticipated
investment in social media ineffectual. The key to an effective
social media strategy is listening.”
The survey went further to explore the extent
to which organisations integrate marketing technologies across
their organisation. Almost half of respondents (42 percent) said
they don’t incorporate clickstream and web analytics data into
their customer and email database. “This is a worrying statistic as
it shows many organisations are losing any advantage that this
valuable actionable insight could give them” adds Eldridge.
The research also explored the importance of
customer engagement and found that over half of respondents (51
percent) are placing a ‘fair’ or ‘significant’ amount of effort on
moving from a campaign-centric direct marketing model towards
multichannel customer engagement – in fact only 7 percent are
making no effort at all. Eldridge concludes, “Engaging with
customers is becoming paramount and the yardstick by which we
measure those brands that survive and those that don’t. Marketers
now need to appeal to the individual and engage with customers on a
one-to-one basis. The easiest way to achieve this is by investing
in Social Media Marketing and Social Media Monitoring, and by
embracing the web.”
The 7th annual Alterian Survey will
be launched at a webinar at 1600 (GMT) on 21 January 2010. To
secure a space or to watch a replay of the webinar, visit
http://www.alterian.com/news__events/events/january_2010_webinar.aspx
To obtain a copy of the full report of the
Alterian Annual Survey results visit: http://www.alterian.com/resources/research.aspx