There have never been more communication options with which to engage customers. While there are more channels to reach prospects and customers, more media alternatives mean more confusion and more projects to manage. Your customers are trying to figure out the right social and mobile customer strategy for their businesses and sifting through big data challenges. Marketers are scrambling to determine the most effective priorities that will drive the customer experience forward.

You hear it over and over—some marketers are taking funds out of their print budgets and investing in online, while others are cutting back on direct mail to focus on e-mail. In a recent InfoTrends study entitled Understanding Vertical Markets: Enterprise Communications Requirements, InfoTrends surveyed more than 1,000 enterprises with 500+ employees. The results confirmed that marketers are planning to shift more and more dollars to alternate media. Survey respondents indicated that print spending for communications will decline by -6.2% over the next two years, although these communications will still account for almost 30% of spending. Mobile will experience the highest growth, with expenditures increasing by 8.8% over the next two years. Meanwhile, online/Web communication spending is expected to increase by 4.9%.

Figure 1: How is your company’s total communications spending distributed among the following types?