July 16th, 2009 -- Terms like integration and multi-channel are on the lips of almost every marketer in the world. For graphic communications firms, it is time to examine data about how marketers are investing their marketing dollars and determine what tools and techniques they want to use to reach consumers. Whether your clients are offline marketers or digital marketers, developing integrated, multi-channel marketing campaigns is now a critical element of their planning and strategy. They are going to demand that their business partners have the appropriate technology and skills to support multi-channel communications initiatives.

In March 2009, the CMO Council published its annual Marketing Outlook Survey, which surveyed more than 650 marketers from around the globe. According to Donovan Neale-May, CMO Council Executive Director, “Marketers are not running scared from the economy. Broad concerns about the economic, stock market, and credit downturns are not the leading forces shaping this year’s budget planning process. Instead marketers are paying close attention to their customers and responding to changes in the selling cycle. The emphasis is on building internal efficiencies and strategic cost-cutting, increasing customer insight, and strengthening integration with sales to drive revenue and market share.” The survey noted that when it comes to investments in marketing automation, tactical capabilities and point solutions dominate. The top two target areas of investment for 2009 are e-mail marketing (44.9%) and online surveys and research (33.2%). Solutions that provide lead generation linked directly to sales are also critical and at the forefront of the CMO’s decision-making process. Global marketers stated that their top accomplishment in 2008 was realigning operational processes and capabilities to better support sales and drive demand generation, followed by improving performance and accountability for their organizations.

During its 2008 multi-client study entitled Multi-Channel Communications Measurement and Benchmarking, InfoTrends surveyed over 200 marketers and asked about the effect of the economy on their 2009 budgets. While 41.9 % of respondents were reducing budgets, 29.5% were reallocating and migrating to a different media mix.