Chief marketing officers of major corporations are always on the hunt to find new ways to engage with their audiences but many are falling short of the mark and literally throwing money out the window because they aren’t as in touch with their audiences as they think they are.
Gartner’s conducts a study of marketing executives of major companies in the United States and United Kingdom every year and their results for 2018 were just released.
Taking a Look at Budgets
Marketing budgets aren’t being monitored for return on investment by most marketing teams so they have no idea if their marketing efforts are being effective or not. If CMOs want to be better in 2019, they should figure out a way to keep track of the results of their marketing campaigns.
In 2016, marketing budgets were averaging 12.1% but dropped to 11.3% in 2017. Will budgets go back up in 2019 or lower some more?
Sixty three percent of the CMOs interviewed by Gartner’s feel that their budgets will go up again next year depending on how things with taxes go in the remaining months of 2018.
What Types of Advertising Connect With Your Audience?
There are thoughts about increasing TV advertising budgets in 2019 but I can’t even begin to fathom why! Most American consumers seem to be cutting the cable cord since package prices seem to be on the rise for less value. Most of the consumers that I have interviewed in my own market research the past few years have decided to go with live streaming options like Netflix or Hulu instead of cable.
Apparently, 49% of CMOs stated they plan to increase their TV and offline media budgets in 2019.
Amazon marketing is seeing an upswing in recent years with others looking to Facebook and Google advertising. Personally, I don’t even look on the right hand side of the screen when I am on Facebook anymore because I know that it’ll be nothing but ads and I know that most of them won’t even pertain to me.
One interesting thing that I thought when I read the survey results was that so many marketing officers are moving a good portion of their budgets to Amazon marketing. Now, that actually makes sense to me because so many consumers start their product search on Amazon and then price compare from there.
Some consumers don’t comparison shop at all and trust Amazon enough that if they find a good price for the product they are looking for, they end their search there and just buy it.
The survey that was conducted by Gartner’s was of 621 executives in the US and UK at companies that had more than $500 million in annual revenue. The survey was conducted in July and August 2018.
I feel that larger companies are out of touch with their customer base and should focus more on what the consumer needs or wants. Consumers tell you what they need from you based on where they choose to spend their marketing dollars and what they choose to buy. But, most businesses aren’t actually listening.
How would you relate to your customer and encourage them to choose you over your competition? I would love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks for reading,