75% of US organizations say that competition with social media for recipients’ time and attention is either “very challenging” or “somewhat challenging” to their future success in email, according to [download page] a report released in February 2012 by Econsultancy in partnership with the Email Experience Council of the Direct Marketing Association. Other challenges to email’s success include young people abandoning email as their primary channel (69%), getting the deserved budget and attention (65%), and integrating email with other marketing channels (61%).
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The top medium of choice for clients in Q4 2011 was spot TV (broadcast and cable), reported by 51% of agencies, according to a survey released in January 2012 by STRATA. Digital was second, cited by 31% of agencies, down 9% from Q3, followed by spot radio (8%). Spot TV (broadcast) continues to be an area of interest, with 28% of those surveyed saying they are more focused on it than a year ago, up 12% from Q4 2010. Read More »

Content creation (23%), is the most time consuming task for community managers, beating out Facebook engagement (19%) and customer service (13%), according to a survey released in January 2012 by Social Fresh. Another content-related task, managing an editorial calendar, came in fourth on the list, on par with comment moderation and Twitter engagement (all at 10%). Community engagement (5%) and analytics/reporting (3%) also appeared on the list, but were voted the most time consuming task by a much smaller proportion. Read More »

When reviewing and evaluating agency relationships, the majority of multi-national client marketers look at strategic contributions (57%) and business value created (56%), according to [download page] a CMO Council survey released in January 2012. Other key considerations include agency efficiency and effectiveness (50%), market impact and success of campaigns (42%), and creative excellence (42%). Yet although senior marketers appear to have an array of methods by which to evaluate their relationships, slightly more than two-thirds do no have solutions or hosted services that improve the agency benchmarking and evaluation process. Read More »

Nearly all (97%) brand advertisers want their primary marketing objective to be well defined in advance of their online campaigns, with 73% of media sellers also highlighting the importance of this alignment, saying that agreement around what constitutes success is the top way to help them improve results for advertisers, according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by Digiday, sponsored by Vizu. However, only 18% of agencies said they are able to establish a single objective against which ROI will be measured with their clients in advance of a campaign.
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64% of brand marketers plan to increase their online brand advertising spending this year, compared to 49% who plan to increase their direct response budgets, according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by Digiday, sponsored by Vizu. In fact, 44% of brand respondents project their interactive brand ad spending to increase by more than 10%, and 22% put their planned increase at more than 20%. By contrast, just 20% plan a direct response advertising budget increase of more than 10%, and only 13% of more than 20%. Read More »

Three-quarters of marketers rank specific sector experience between a 7 and 10 on a 10-point scale of importance (with 10 being the most important) when looking for a new agency, according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by RSW/US. In fact, the highest proportions of respondents rank sector focus a 10, 9, or 7 (all at 20%) in importance when looking for a new agency, compared to only 8% combined ranking it a 4 or lower.
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A greater proportion of marketers than agencies believe that spending on traditional media such as direct mail (25% vs. 17%), print (22% vs. 8%), and radio (18% vs. 3%) will increase this year as compared to 2011, with the proportions expecting spend to increase on TV relatively on par, according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by RSW/US. Read More »

Hourly SEO costs vary across countries, but $76-200/hour is the most common range, covering more than 50% of firms in all countries surveyed by SEOMoz with the exception of India, according to an AYTM January 2012 infographic. The pricing range is highest in Australia/New Zealand (62%), followed by the US (58.1%), and Canada (56%). Within the US, the most common pricing range is $101-150/hour (29.4%), followed by $76-100/hour (17.6%).
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2 in 5 companies do not have a return-on-investment (ROI) figure for any of the money they spend on social media marketing, according to [download page] a November 2011 report from Econsultancy in partnership with LBi and bigmouthmedia. Data from the “State of Social 2011 Report” indicates that a further 26% say they can only attribute an ROI figure to a tiny amount of the money they spend on social media. Just 1 in 5 say they have an ROI figure for at least half of their social media marketing investments, representing a 23% decrease from 26% of respondents in 2010. Read More »