Survey Shows Surprising Statistics

Came across an interesting survey from the Sagefrog Marketing Group. They’ve been doing a Business-to-Business Marketing Mix Survey for three years now, so they have some solid data to chew on.

The finding that stands out to me is that 41 percent of the companies surveyed do not have a marketing plan in place. That is unconscionable. How can a business that expects to compete in today’s tough economy not have a marketing plan?

There is a bit of good news: the survey shows the number of companies spending 10 percent or more of their total budget on marketing increased by 16 percent over last year. Nearly half of companies surveyed said they spend 10 percent or more of their budget on marketing and 81 percent said they spend 5 percent or more.

Other key results include:

• 51% of the respondents utilize both in-house resources and outsource to marketing firms, which is a 7% increase from last year;
• 41% of the respondents do not have formal marketing plans in place, down from 44 percent in 2007;
• companies are spending most of their marketing dollars on web development and web marketing.

The survey also includes data about how marketing budgets are spent, where sales leads come from, which tactics have the highest rate of return, and tools used by online marketers. Sagefrog Marketing Group conducted the survey online during the summer of 2008 and drew responses from 100 marketing professionals from health, technology and business service companies in the Greater Philadelphia and New Jersey region.

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