Marketing News Archives 2009

June 4, 2009 Small Business is getting Social   According to a study done by Sage Software and AMI-partners published by E-Marketer, small businesses in the US and Canada are picking up social networking, with over 260,000 businesses using this tactic. Most of them use professional sites such as LinkedIn but Facebook and MySpace were also widely used. The main uses were for responding to customer questions (64%), networking (57%), while only 33% used them for advertising and promotion of their businesses. Few used the sites for influencing purchases which according to E-marketer may be a strategic mistake. One business reported in the article gaining 15% of his day's takings through a Twitter specific promotion, showing there were indeed ways to make sales out of social media. Source: E-Marketer.com   June,3, 2009 US DTC advertising looks like further falls in 2009   In a recent study done by Cegedim Dendrite in the US, DTC spending was forecast to fall for the second year in a row, with reductions made this year 10% larger than the previous year. Almost half of marketers surveyed stated the decrease was due to budget cuts (48%). Other key reasons mentioned include shifts to other promotional approaches such as a move from DTC to targeted direct-to-patient promotion (16%); to direct-to-health professional promotion (15%) or to persistence or adherence programs (9%). US drug marketers also appear to be less supportive of DTC as a medium with 55% rating DTC advertising less effective. The research highlighted a move to more experimentation in 2009 with Below-The-Line tactics such as cards, rebates and coupons. Email, websites and search were listed as areas where marketers would be focusing more investment. Source: E-marketer June 3, 2009 Mobile marketing budgets Grow despite difficult times   Mobile Marketing has always been the great opportunity that never took off until now! Expenditure is relatively low in this rather small category of marketing investment. For instance, in the US, Mobile marketing remains one of the lowest categories capturing just 1.8% of total expenditure.   While it may be one of the lowest areas for marketing investment, mobile marketing is capturing attention due to an average increase of 26% in mobile marketing budgets. This is even more impressive when you realise that US marketers are seeing an average drop of 7% in their overall budgets.   Source: DM News May 29, 2009 Well Bing me! Microsoft to launch new competitor to Google   The much waited launch of Microsoft's alternative to Google, has finally been announced. Bing is the name of the new search engine, although it is believed that Microsoft has been testing the search engine internally under the name Kumo for several months. The new search engine will be launched over the next few days with a full launch next Wednesday. Google is reported to currently have 64% of all internet searches in the US.   Source: Business Spectator

May 27, 2009 Online advertising growth slowing in 2009   The Frost and Sullivan 2009 report on online advertising for the March quarter shows that growth in this sector is slowing. After a healthy 26% increase in 2008 over the previous year, online advertising has been hit like many others by the recession. Despite this slowing, online advertising appears more resilient than other media such as print or television.   Source: Marketing Magazine