A close look at recent market studies sheds some light on what's happening in the world of business-to-business marketing, and provides several interesting insights regarding search marketing. It appears that business marketers' perceptions are changing and as a result—budgets are starting to shift.
Slower Adoption Rates
As part of Forrester's Marketing Effectiveness Survey, conducted in the second quarter of 2006, the research firm asked B-to-B marketers about the tactics they currently deploy. Not surprisingly, the top practices reported include all the usual suspects... trade shows (used by 91 percent of those surveyed), public relations (deployed by 89 percent), and print advertising (77 percent).
More telling, however, was that search marketing only reported in at 59 percent of the B-to-B marketers surveyed.
The fact that business marketers have been slower to adopt search marketing than their consumer-oriented counterparts is also reflected in Marketing Sherpa's 2007 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide. It compares B-to-C and B-to-B online marketing budgets and found that while consumer-focused marketers devote between 35 and 60% of their online budget to paid search, in contrast, business marketers only devote 20 to 45% of their online funds to search ads.
It appears that, today, search marketing plays a relatively small role in the overall B-to-B marketing picture, but the research also reveals that things are starting to change...
A close look at recent market studies sheds some light on what’s happening in the world of business-to-business marketing, and provides several interesting insights regarding search marketing. It appears that business marketers’ perceptions are changing and as a result—budgets are starting to shift.
Slower Adoption Rates
As part of Forrester’s Marketing Effectiveness Survey, conducted in the second quarter of 2006, the research firm asked B-to-B marketers about the tactics they currently deploy. Not surprisingly, the top practices reported include all the usual suspects… trade shows (used by 91 percent of those surveyed), public relations (deployed by 89 percent), and print advertising (77 percent).
More telling, however, was that search marketing only reported in at 59 percent of the B-to-B marketers surveyed.
The fact that business marketers have been slower to adopt search marketing than their consumer-oriented counterparts is also reflected in Marketing Sherpa’s 2007 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide. It compares B-to-C and B-to-B online marketing budgets and found that while consumer-focused marketers devote between 35 and 60% of their online budget to paid search, in contrast, business marketers only devote 20 to 45% of their online funds to search ads.
It appears that, today, search marketing plays a relatively small role in the overall B-to-B marketing picture, but the research also reveals that things are starting to change…
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