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Why 2008 will be a great year to actively pursue trade show marketing…
By Joyce McKee | December 28, 2007
On December 10, 2007 Crain’s Publication B2B Magazine reports on their recent research of marketing executives. I’ve posted the entire piece here and my comments are below:
‘BtoB’ survey finds marketers plan to increase budgets in 2008 Story posted: December 10, 2007 - 12:48 pm EDT Chicago—BtoB’s “2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans” survey found that 60.1% of b-to-b marketers plan to increase their marketing budgets next year.
The survey of 213 b-to-b marketers was conducted online during the last week of November and the first week of December. The biggest budget increases will be seen in online marketing, with 79.1% of marketers planning to boost their online budgets next year.
Also, the average percentage of the marketing budget spent next year on online marketing will be 33.8%, up from 26.5% this year. Another tactic that will see a spending boost in 2008 is event marketing, with 49.5% of marketers planning budget increases in this area.
Direct mail will also get a boost next year, with 49.0% of respondents planning to increase their direct budgets. The primary marketing goal for 2008 is customer acquisition, cited by 62.4% of respondents, followed by brand awareness (19.3%), customer retention (11.7%) and other objectives (6.6%).
—Kate Maddox
There are a couple of numbers that leap out, for me.
One is that 62.4% of the respondents are in customer acquisition mode for 2008, which means they will be actively looking for ways to ramp up lead generation and marketing.
Next, consider that almost half of respondents – 49.5 % plan to increase their event marketing budgets. That means that half these marketing folks value the role of face-to-face and will put money into gathering customers via trade shows and other events.
Add it all up and it’s clear that 2008 will be a banner year for reaching new customers via trade shows — if you prepare properly.
That’s why I’ll be releasing our special report, ‘Converting Browsers to Buyers’, which includes more important statistics that show the value of the trade show world and why to use face to face events as a primary customer acquisition tool. It will be available in the next few days, completely free for members of this blog.
I’ll keep you posted.
Until next time,
Joyce McKee
Topics: Trade Show News |