Salesforce surveyed 5,000 marketers at the end of last year on their budgets for 2015, and the software giant found that 70 percent of them plan to increase social media advertising, including mobile ads on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.
Also, 70 percent of the marketers—who hail from every major category—plan to increase their dollars for organic social or content marketing, as many call it.
“One of the fears I had was that since social media advertising grew, you might see some brands fail to recognize you have to support the organic side of it as well,” said Jeff Rohrs, vp of marketing insights at Salesforce. “Otherwise, those advertisements won’t perform. But it looks like the advertising will be complemented by the organic side.”
Sixty-seven percent of companies will also lift spend on mobile data tracking, while 66 percent will spend more on branded mobile apps. More generally, 84 percent of marketers plan to increase or maintain spending this year. And 38 percent of those surveyed will shift spend from traditional advertising to digital.
Here are some other highlights from Salesforce’s 47-page “State of Marketing” report:
- 71 percent said mobile marketing is core to their business.
- 68 percent have integrated mobile into their larger marketing strategy.
- 58 percent have a dedicated mobile team.
- 73 percent think email is core to their business.
- 66 percent believe social media is core to their business.
- 66 percent have a dedicated social media team.
- 56 percent said their corporate websites are their most effective digital technologies.
Scott McCorkle, CEO, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, adds, “The future of marketing is building cohesive customer journeys across sales, service and marketing interactions. It is more important than ever to connect with each person interacting with your brand, and personalize journeys based on their actions and preferences. Our 2015 State of Marketing report shows that this will be the year that businesses connect the dots accordingly and implement a truly multi-channel approach to personalize eachcustomer’s engagement.”
It’s interesting to see companies increasing budget in places such as Facebook or Linkedin; the market is definitely shifting towards social media as an online interactionmore than ever. Cross-platform marketing allows you to spread your message across many different channels where it can reach more people and have a greater impact.
Let us see what happens in 2015.
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