B2B Barometer suggests B2B research spend resilient
A B2B Barometer survey has been completed by Circle Research and reflects the opinion of more than 100 client side direct marketers - primarily in the B2B sector.
The responding companies had a cumulative turnover in excess of £2.6 billion and collectively control B2B marketing budgets of around £34 million. The survey was conducted online during June 2009 by specialist B2B research agency Circle Research (www.circle-research.com).
Key findings include:
Organisational budgets are down (48% report a planned decrease for the coming 12 months) but market research spend appears resilient. Most plan to maintain (31%) or increase (46%) their spend on research over the coming 12 months with only 23% reporting a planned decrease Three quarters (73%) expect the economic downturn to last between 12 and 24 months. One half (50%) however expect their own organisation to grow over this period suggesting that whilst publicly pessimistic, many are privately optimistic.
As marketers weather the storm there has been a clear shift in focus from the strategic to the tactical. 71% report that they have shifted spend to activities which directly generate revenues rather than those which build the brand.
Research organisations need to develop tools to measure the impact of social media. Three quarters (71%) report social media to be highly relevant to a B2B organisation and a similar number (70%) are boosting investment in this area.
Marketers continue to face challenges in reliably measuring return on investment with 49% reporting that they have no systems in place to measure ROI
The executive summary of the B2B Barometer can be downloaded from Circle Research’s website
July 25, 2009 at 9:35 am
I share the same views. Liked your blog very much.