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2014: The year of Digital Marketing…Wait a Second, What Exactly is Digital Marketing?

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Or maybe 2014 will be the year of mobile, or the year content marketing. Ok, Ok, I can guarantee one thing, 2014 will be the year of the horse.

While 2014 might not be the year of digital marketing, digital will continue to be deeply important to the marketing organization. As digital spend continues to increase, the focus grows. Despite this, there can be a lack of clarity around the topic. What exactly falls within digital marketing? How much budget is actually being spent on digital? And how does it all meld together?

Let’s dive in.

Digital Marketing Budget Trends:

From 2009 to the end of 2013 digital marketing program spend has increased from 13% to 34% of the total marketing program mix. For 2014 IDC’s CMO Advisory Service expects this to increase to 39% and to 50% in 2016 (highlighted within Kathleen Schaub and Rich Vancil‘s IDC Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) 2014 Predictions). While this level varies depending on sector and size, the upward trend is clear. 

What is Digital Marketing:

At this point all marketers agree that digital is important. That is all well and good, but without a consistent definition around the topic, digital marketing may mean different things to each person or organization. To be successful in building a digital marketing practice, having clear definitions is imperative. This will drive consistency throughout the organization leading to proper tracking and staff allocations.  Below is IDC’s definition of which marketing programs fall within “digital marketing.”

For specific definitions for each area please view IDC’s Worldwide Sales, Marketing, and Market Intelligence Taxonomy, 2013.

Digital as an Organizational Practice:

Defining and tracking digital marketing is important, but the modern marketer understands it must be executed in orchestration with the full marketing strategy. A key guidance for 2014 is to create “systems not silos.” In short, rather than creating another walled practice within marketing (think, advertising vs email marketing, vs events), make digital an organizational practice that spans across all tactics and staff. Separating digital and non-digital marketing will create more complex challenges for the organization. Avoid this approach and make digital a strength across all of marketing.

3 Take Aways:

  1. Digital marketing spend is growing, FAST, it will be 50% of the (multi-billion dollar) B2B tech marketer’s program budget by 2016. 
  2. Work to define digital marketing so everyone in the organization is speaking in the same terms. 
  3. Do not separate digital from the rest of marketing, it is too important to sit on an island. 
Now it’s your turn, what are you planning to do within digital marketing for 2014? What other suggestions do you have for your peers? What did I miss?
Follow Sam Melnick on Twitter: @SamMelnick

Copyright 2011 IDC. Complete articles may be reposted. Reproduction in part is forbidden unless specifically authorized. All rights reserved. Please contact IDC for information on republishing or web rights.

2013 Tech Marketing Budget Trends: 3rd Platform Companies and Products Lead the Growth

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Yesterday, IDC’s CMO Advisory Service had our annual Tech Marketing Benchmark Webinar. This study goes out to close to 100 senior lever marketing executives and represents the largest B2B Tech companies in the world (this year the average company revenue was $9.1B.) The webinar was packed with great information and was a great success. However the overlying question each year is where will marketing budgets sit at the end of the year and what direction are they moving. The results are some good news mixed with trends that point to hard work that marketers need to do around their budgets. 
Good News: More Organizations are Increasing their Marketing Spend Than Decreasing

As seen in the graph below, across the entire tech industry a net of 15% of companies are increasing marketing spend versus those decreasing. While it may not always feel like it, there are marketing budget increases out there to be had!

Challenge for Marketers in 2014: Finding the Right Areas that Should Receive More Marketing Budget

Despite the fact more companies across the tech industry are increasing marketing budgets than decreasing, budgets at the aggregate levels are flat to slightly negative. IDC expects Marketing budgets to decrease 0.5% year-over-year from 2012 to 2013. So that leaves us with an interesting juxtaposition, more companies are increasing budgets than decreasing, but at the aggregate weighted level the data shows a slight decrease in overall budgets. Three reasons we are seeing this:

  1. The largest companies within the Tech Industry are seeing flat to declining marketing budgets due to continued transformation within the industry. This brings the weighted levels down. 
  2. Hardware companies (as seen in the above graph) are the only sector where more companies are decreasing marketing budgets than increasing. Companies within this sector are typically larger and the Hardware industry is feeling more affects from the industry’s transformation. 
  3. 3rd Platform companies and other high growth product lines and business units are driving much of the revenue growth and in turn are receiving much of the increases within marketing budgets. These companies are smaller, so they add the “n” value of companies increasing, but do not affect the weighted average as heavily. 
Illustrating the final point (#3) you can see in the graph below that Cloud Software Vendor’s (who are right smack in the middle of IDC’s 3rd Platform) Revenue Growth, Marketing Investment Growth, and Marketing Budget Ratio (total marketing budget / total revenue) are all at least 3X  that of their on-premise peers. Some of this can be attributed the size of the Cloud Vendors (typically smaller), but the growth being seen in the 3rd Platform areas is undeniable.
Note: If you would like to discuss cloud vendors marketing benchmarks further please email me at smelnick (at) idc (dot) com!
In closing the 3 budget takeaways we are giving for budgets in 2013 – 2014 are:
  1. More companies are increasing (vs. decreasing) marketing spend. (This is good news!)
  2. There is not enough “Peanut Butter” to go around… (so an even spread will not work this year)
  3. Marketing Investment will inevitably find growth areas: products; markets;  segments; or geos. (So, work hard to find those areas and invest wisely)
Sam Melnick is a Research Analyst at IDC’s CMO Advisory Service and manages the entire benchmark survey and study. You can follow him on twitter at @SamMelnick
Copyright 2011 IDC. Complete articles may be reposted. Reproduction in part is forbidden unless specifically authorized. All rights reserved. Please contact IDC for information on republishing or web rights.