AdAge has put out their 2014 BtoB Outlook: Marketing Priorities and Plans Survey results and digital, video, and mobile all are looking up this year in terms of budget expenditures. Meanwhile, more traditional marketing avenues are pretty flat across the board. The increased digital spending is probably due to the 52.5% that say they will increase their marketing budgets in 2014, and the buzzwords in B2B content marketing are mobile, and social.
Just a quick note about methodology, there is none. Well, there is none stated on the page where they reported these numbers. So we don't know how many respondents there were, who they were or where they work (as in company size, vertical, etc). So really, these numbers are in almost a complete vacuum and therefore are simply that, numbers. AdAge is a pretty reputable source though, so I'm inclined to set aside some of my skepticism about the validity of the numbers.
The Advertising Age survey reports that just about 80% of marketing budgets will get a bump in the digital spending side of things. That's 13% more than last year. Events and telemarketing (really?!) were the only other areas that are expected to show growth this year. In fact, almost two-thirds of respondents stated they will spend 25% or more of their budgets on digital this year, 10% said it will be 75-100% of their marketing budgets.
Digital Marketing Spending Breakdown
"For the following platforms, which of these do you plan in increase spending on this year," was the question posed and so the numbers in the bubbles are changes year-to-year while the chart itself actually represents the percentage of respondents who stated they will be increasing these areas. So, for example, websites are most likely to see an increase with about two-thirds saying they will increase that area, even though that is down 4% from last year.
Most Likely to see a Budgetary Increases
- Web
- Video
- Social Media
- Search
- Webcasts/Webinars
- Mobile
- Banners
- Sponsorships
Interesting that webcasts/webinars were pulled out to a separate category and have the largest amount of growth for the year-to-year numbers. Here at ReelSEO we would probably lump that into live video streaming and then the "video" category would most likely pre-recorded ads and marketing material. After webcasts/webinars, it's video at 7.9% growth, mobile at 7.3% which is not at all surprising to me as that is what I prognosticated would be the case this year. Remember, these numbers are strictly B2B marketing, not all marketing.