Sherpa: Changes in 2011 Email Marketing Budgets!

Have your email marketing budgets increased, decreased or stayed the same for 2011?

Take a look at this week’s chart from MarketingSherpa to learn how the changes planned for your 2011 email marketing budget compare to those of more than 1,100 marketers.

The extent of changes to email marketing budgets for the coming year



There's no question about it -- email budgets will continue to rise in 2011. As organizations become (cautiously) optimistic about the improving economy, purse strings are starting to loosen, and email marketing is a primary beneficiary.

In addition to economic forces, email is earning increased investment because it continues to prove itself as one of the most (if not the most) effective tools in the marketing toolbox.

Multichannel (B2B2C) organizations are much more likely to increase their email budget by a significant amount than are single-channel organizations.

B2B organizations, particularly in the industrial sector, are often considered conservative marketing spenders. While a majority of those marketing exclusively to other businesses are increasing email budgets, B2B marketers are also more likely than other marketers to keep their 2011 email budget the same as 2010.

For additional research data and insights about email marketing, download and read the free Executive Summary from the MarketingSherpa 2011 Email Marketing Benchmark Report.

by Jeff Rice, Research Analyst

MarketingSherpa: New Chart: Changes in 2011 email marketing budgets.

Emineo Media

Website and Email Critical B2B Investments!

In a recent survey of business-to-business (B2B) marketers, traditional online tactics remain key to marketing success.

Just over half of B2B marketers surveyed told BtoB Magazine their budgets would go up this year, mostly by less than 15%. With a primary marketing goal of customer acquisition (69%), the greatest number of respondents expected spending increases to come from online (78%). By contrast, 44% said they would be spending more on events and 36% on direct mail.

Online, B2B marketers were most likely to report planned increases in marketing spending on their websites and email programs, followed by social media. These results differed in priority from those of a survey of general US marketers by RSW/US.

Among that group, 65% planned to spend more on social media, followed by 47% on email. RSW/US did not report on increases in website spending.



More than two-thirds of B2B marketers already used social media marketing as of December 2010, where the main focus of marketing efforts was brand building. Despite customer acquisition being B2B’s top goal for the year, less than half of respondents were using social media for lead generation.



In 2010, social media, websites and email each received a median of 10% of B2Bs’ online marketing budgets. Spending levels were higher on display and video advertising.

 Article

Emineo Media

Facebook Drives US Social Network Ad Spending Past $3 Billion in 2011!

Social network advertising to account for 10.8% of online market

US marketers will spend $3.08 billion to advertise on social networking sites this year, eMarketer predicts. Spending will be up 55% over the $1.99 billion advertisers devoted to social networks in 2010 and will rise by a further 27.7% next year to reach nearly $4 billion.

This year’s dramatic growth in spending will bring social media ad dollars to 10.8% of the total spent online in the US. Worldwide, where social network ad spending will rise 71.6% to $5.97 billion, that proportion will be somewhat lower, at 8.7%.



The 2011 forecast for US spending is $1 billion higher than eMarketer’s last estimate of US social network ad spending, made in August 2010. The primary driver of the change in projected spending is greater ad spending on Facebook, by far the biggest player in the space.

Facebook Drives US Social Network Ad Spending Past $3 Billion in 2011

Emineo Media

Email, Social Media to See More Marketing Dollars in 2011!

Email marketers have been warming up to social media for the past year, using social elements like “share with your network” and buttons to connect with brands on Twitter and Facebook in email campaigns. Email and social media also go together in another way: They are the top tactics marketers worldwide expect to increase budgets on in 2011. 

According to a November 2010 survey of business executives around the globe by StrongMail, nearly two-thirds of companies will increase spending on email marketing, and 57% will put more dollars toward social media marketing. Search took a distant third place with 41% of respondents indicating they would spend more.



Email, Social Media to See More Marketing Dollars in 2011

Emineo Media

Resources Are Now a Big Issue for Social Media Marketers!

Lack of sufficient time and resources worse than lack of strategy or objectives

Social media was once seen by some marketers as a quick and easy way to reach consumers at their newest channel of choice. Advertising on the sites was relatively cheap, and marketing on the sites by creating a brand page or profile was free—it only cost internal time and resources.

But those resources can prove to be substantial, as many marketing professionals seem to have learned, based on a November 2010 survey by social media marketing solutions firm R2integrated. Asked what the biggest barrier to social media marketing was, more than two in five selected time and resources. Just half as many said questions about return on investment were as problematic.

Resources Are Now a Big Issue for Social Media Marketers

Emineo Media

2011 Trends: Content Marketing Is Critical!

Next year, marketers will need to rethink their approach to advertising and marketing and intensify their focus on creating magnetic content that will naturally attract consumers, rather than relying solely on the interruption model of advertising, which consumers are responding to less and less. Think pull vs. push. Magnetic content can include anything created on behalf of a brand—be it an ad, YouTube video, online game, Facebook page, Twitter promo or mobile app—that consumers genuinely want to engage with and pass along to others. This content entertains, amuses, informs, serves a function or satisfies a consumer need. It’s welcome instead of annoying or interruptive. Marketers, especially those working in social media, have seen the proven value of branded content, sometimes also referred to as “earned media.” Nearly three-quarters of US companies with a social media strategy used such content in their campaigns, making it the most common type of content used, according to a June 2010 study by King Fish Media, HubSpot and Junta42.

Creating effective, breakthrough advertising has always been a challenge for marketers, as well as for the agencies charged with the task. But the classic interruption-disruption model of advertising is moribund. Marketers should ask themselves five questions about the magnetic content they are seeking to create to determine whether it will be truly attractive to their audience:

1. Is the content unique?
2. Is the content useful?
3. Is the content well executed?
4. Is the content fun?
5. Does the content make good use of the channel in which it appears (e.g., social, mobile, video)?

Marketers should base their magnetic content ideas on well-researched customer behaviors, attitudes and lifestyles. This entails altering your emphasis in marketing from “selling product” to identifying and solving a consumer need or want that transcends or complements the physical product or service you are selling. Ask yourself this critical question: Besides your product, what can you do for the consumer?

Geoff Ramsey—CEO, Co-Founder

2011 Trends: Content Marketing Is Critical

Consumers Believe in Positive Word-of-Mouth!

Good news about brand buzz! Many marketers still struggle with the loss of control over their brand that comes with the ability of consumers to discuss them—and have those messages widely disseminated—across social media. But most brand-related chatter, both online and offline, is positive. And positive buzz carries more weight with consumers, according to research from Keller Fay Group. In a study of hundreds of thousands of conversations, the firm found about two-thirds of word-of-mouth brand references were “mostly positive.” Those can be powerful. Two-thirds of study respondents thought positive word-of-mouth was credible, compared with fewer than half who believed negative buzz. Positive information was also more likely to be passed on to others, more than twice as likely to get people to look for more information, and had nearly four times the chance of pushing consumers to make a purchase.



Overall, word-of-mouth is generally positive, but some industries do get better buzz than others. Children’s products and food brands tended to get the most positive mentions, while net advocacy on behalf of companies in the telecommunications, financial services and healthcare industries was lowest. But even for those brands, the majority of word-of-mouth was still upbeat.

Consumers Believe in Positive Word-of-Mouth

Does Social Media Marketing Make Sense for the Smallest Businesses?

Small businesses unsure about reaching audience on social sites

eMarketer estimates that 127 million people in the US, or 57.5% of internet users, will use social networks at least monthly this year. Facebook alone has over half a billion active users worldwide. Still, many of the smallest businesses don’t believe their customers can be marketed to on such sites, according to an August 2010 survey from customer review platform RatePoint.

Respondents, the majority of whom were business owners with just one to five employees, were split on whether social media was a quick way to connect with current or future customers, but sentiment was largely negative. When asked if they thought customers wanted to hear from them on social sites, only a quarter of businesses thought they did.

In addition, 20% of small businesses did not think their customers spent time on social networking sites; another 27% were undecided. And nearly a quarter did not believe their customers did research online before doing business with their company.

Does Social Media Marketing Make Sense for the Smallest Businesses?

Social to Boost SEO!

Majority of companies have blogged with goal of search optimization

The majority of search marketers have recognized the importance of social media to their search engine optimization efforts, according to a November 2010 study from search marketing software provider SEOmoz.

Nearly 71% of respondents said they use social media as part of their SEO strategy. Social media marketing can be an excellent driver of content visibility, by helping to keep content fresh and abundant, and also by increasing the number of inbound links a site receives.

Social to Boost SEO

Emineo Media

Benefits of Email-Social Media Integration!

Social media most effective channel to integrate with email

Several studies have shown that a majority of email marketers are making use of social media tactics, both to boost their social media efforts as well as to improve email campaigns.

A June 2010 survey of North American email and online marketers by email marketing firm Lyris found that most of them were seeing positive results. Just 6% said their marketing results were no better after integrating social and email, compared with 54% who said results were at least somewhat better.

Benefits of Email-Social Media Integration

Emineo Media

Small Businesses Focus Online Spend on Websites!

A plurality of small businesses will keep their marketing budgets steady next year across the board, including spending on websites, direct mail, print, TV and social media, according to research by Zoomerang and GrowBiz Media, a provider of information and services to help organizations reach the small and midsize business audience.

This year, SMB allocation of online marketing budgets leaned toward websites, where 27% of SMBs with 1,000 or fewer employees spent at least 30% of their budget. Email took second place with 18% devoting 30% or more, followed by social media, where 10% of SMBs said they spent at least three in 10 marketing dollars.

The tilt toward investment in websites should continue, as 17% of respondents said they planned to increase budgets for their site in 2011—the highest percentage planning to up any budget line item. In comparison, 15% said they would spend more next year on email and 13% on social media.

According to the survey, the vast majority of SMB websites include general information about the company, but only a minority offer customer service, lead capturing or ecommerce features, leaving plenty of room for investment.

In the realm of word-of-mouth marketing, SMBs relied mostly on the traditional: 70% said they used in-person networking and 50% customer referral rewards, while a comparatively small 34% used social media. Facebook is the most popular social site (80%), but further investment should help small businesses take advantage of the low-cost marketing opportunities in the channel.  Source - eMarketer

The moral here is that you can actually undermine your own marketing efforts if you aren't also tending to your company's online facad, aka your website. Your company website is an investment, not an advertisement.

If you're driving traffic to your website, what efforts have you taken to maximize your marketing ROI?

Emineo Media

Smart Marketing using Good SEO!

To construct a great content-rich website takes planning. A competent designer uses online architectural design principles, carefully combining information delivery and intuitive navigation to satisfy the visitor's needs (why they visited) while accomplishing their own business goals (why the website was created – generate sales ready leads, sales products & services, create awareness, etc).

Layout is vital to the online internet marketing of a site that will attract and also satisfy visitors. Simply put, designing an award winning website is not enough. The site needs to be placed in front of potential visitors or they will not know you exist.

Good SEO includes the integration of web design, development, and interactive marketing with focused traffic-generation tactics that is vital to the success of your site. Without smart marketing any great website will fail.

A focus on interactive marketing through website design, search engine placement, search engine marketing, submission, analytics, email, and branding programs is paramount to online success.

Emineo Media

More Time Spent on Social Media than Email Worldwide!

Email most common daily activity, but social racks up more hours

As the social media trend becomes a normal part of life for internet users the world over, it’s also becoming the most time-intensive activity on the web.

The TNS “Digital Life” survey of internet users around the world found in September 2010 that on average, surfers spent 4.6 hours a week on social sites, compared with 4.4 hours on email, the most common internet activity.

via More Time Spent on Social Media than Email Worldwide - eMarketer.

Emineo Media

HOW TO: Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Strategy!

There’s nothing like the basics to help bring things back into focus when you feel lost. In “Marketing 101,” the acronym AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. This is the most simple and rudimentary of sales and marketing funnels and is still incredibly relevant today when it comes to social media and Internet() marketing strategies.

Each section of AIDA represents a section of your sales and marketing process and can help you set your expectations, decide what to monitor, and visualize the relationships between each part. Understanding the flow of the tools and tactics will also help you get your measurements and analytics in line with your goals.

Here’s a closer look at the breakdown of this marketing funnel, some tips on how to apply it to your social media strategy, and a look at how the model is evolving in the social media age.

via HOW TO: Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Strategy.

Emineo Media

Social Media Increases Small-Business Exposure!

According to the American Express OPEN fall 2010 “Small Business Monitor,” small-business owners have dramatically upped their usage of social media for marketing in the past year.While just one in 10 business owners reported using social networking for marketing last year, 39% indicated they did in September 2010. The impetus is driving sales by connecting with consumers. Facebook was the clear leader among small-business owners, with 27% using the site to attract new customers, vs. 9% using LinkedIn, 8% using Twitter and 5% maintaining a blog.

Social Media Increases Small-Business Exposure

Emineo Media

Interactive Marketing Listens to Customers!

Interactive Marketing is a reference to an evolving trend in marketing where marketing has moved from transaction-based to conversation-based. John Deighton at Harvard provided the definition of interactive marketing, he says; "interactive marketing is the ability to address the customer, remember what the customer says and address the customer again in a way that illustrates that we remember what the customer has told us (Deighton 1996)."

Although interactive marketing processes are facilitated by internet technology, interactive marketing is not the same as online marketing. The ability to communicate with our customer more easily using the technology of the internet is made easier when we can collect customer information online and share this information with them. Interactive marketing works because it allows us to better serve our clients, their customers and provides a better use of marketing dollars.

Emineo Media