Marketing executives are planning to increase spending on all forms of marketing in the coming year, according to the CMO Survey. Marketing budgets are expected to increase 9.1 percent and companies plan a 7.2 percent increase in marketing hires over the next 12 months.
At the same time, optimism among marketing executives for the overall U.S. economy reached its lowest point in two years. On a scale of 1 to 100, respondents rated their own optimism level 52.2 on average. The lowest time before this was in February 2009, when the average was 47.6.
It is important to note that the company performance indicators collected in the survey show companies are holding on to their profit, revenue and ROI gains witnessed over the last six months, said The CMO Survey.
“While executives feel the fear of all the doomsayers operating in financial markets, they are also reporting positive performance gains and are spending despite the negative news. I conclude that these sources closer to company operations, especially in revenue and demand-generating activities like marketing, are trying to tell us that market reactions over the past month may be grossly exaggerated, Moorman continues.
Several other indicators in the survey point to how managers might continue to perform well despite tough times. Results indicate that more firms are planning to go directly to the customer, presumably through the Internet (from 8.4 percent to 11.2 percent planned in the next year); expand sales to international markets where growth has not stalled out (from 18.7 percent to an expected 24.7 percent); and spend to ensure their business stays close to their customer and uses customer insights to drive strategy.
For more facts and figures, see the CMO Survey 2011 results.
