Why Many Tech Vendors will Replace their Legacy CMO

Marketing budgets among the 101 technology companies surveyed will increase by an average of 3.5% in 2014. Those same companies expect a revenue increase of 3.7% for the same period. Companies with a high percentage of cloud, social, mobile and big data analytics will receive marketing budget increases upwards of five times that of the average tech company — increasing their budgets 10-20% year-over-year.

via IDC

Why Global Cloud Software Deployment will Grow Rapidly

The cloud deployment idea has been sweeping across the landscape for the past several years, causing many CIOs to reevaluate how they license and deploy software, and how they think of their IT budgets.  IDC projects the cloud software market will make up over 20% of the worldwide software market by 2018, contributing to almost half of projected growth in the software industry through 2018.

via IDC

Marketers are Spending More to Discover New Perspectives

Marketers continued to spend more on data-driven marketing in Q1 2014, according to research.  Forty percent of U.S. marketers said they increased spending on data-driven marketing in the first quarter of 2014, compared with 38.4% who said the same in Q4 2013.

42% of client-side marketers worldwide said their organization was ahead of the growth curve.

via eMarketer

Why Social Media Teams and Budgets are Shrinking in 2014

The number of companies with four or more people using social as part of their role has shrunk year-on-year since 2011. These findings may not imply that social is “maturing” in business, and we’re moving smoothly towards an efficient implementation.

Instead, far more likely, the amount of resource (human and budget) given over to social media is decreasing due to questionable value.

via State of Corp Social Media

What’s Driving Business Tech Spending Disruption? – Cloud!

It’s a given, this year more CIOs will shift their focus from selective IT efficiency to overall IT effectiveness. In 2014 and beyond, enterprise IT leadership will be judged on their ability to meet the demands of tech-savvy Line of Business users.

This is the type of meaningful progress that CEOs have been anticipating. But that organizational realignment won’t always translate into higher budgets — unless the spending is for Hybrid Cloud Services.

via Business Technology Roundtable

How Digital Marketers allocate Budget for Experimentation

Gartner’s 2014 digital marketing spending survey validated a figure  that’s been postulated — marketers set aside 10% of their budget for activities that lead to future growth.

Digital marketing is known for operating in a “fail often, fail fast” mode, especially with new techniques and technologies.

via Gartner

Why the Digital Marketing Talent Shortage is still a Challenge

The right content makes all the difference when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). Just over one-quarter of marketing professionals worldwide said that lack of quality content was among the most challenging obstacles to achieving important SEO objectives.

Instead, limited budgets and digital skill sets were the top hurdles to reaching content marketing success.

via eMarketer

Why Social Media is Not Valued by CEOs — In My Opinion

With macro-economic uncertainty continuing in numerous markets around the globe, some chief marketing officers (CMOs) at large multinational companies are already being forced to make dramatic budget cuts to both their staffing levels and the associated annual operating budget.

One key area of marketing that’s going to be hit particularly hard is the Corporate Social Media team.

via Medium

Why Savvy B2B Marketers Use Content Marketing, Not Ads

A whopping 93 percent of B2B marketers in the U.S. use content marketing — 30 percent of the total B2B marketing budgets are allocated to content marketing. Plus, 58 percent plan to increase this budget over the next year.

Furthermore, 73 percent of marketers are producing more content than last year and 43 percent are more effective at content marketing than they were this time last year.

via B2Bmarketing

Why Asian Businesses Plan to Increase Digital Marketing Spend

Two-thirds of Asian businesses (66%) plan to increase their digital marketing budgets over the next 12 months, according to the findings from a recent study.

Two-thirds (66%) of companies surveyed said that up to 50% of their total revenues come from digital marketing, while just under a fifth (16%) indicated that they derive more than 70% of their earnings from their investment in digital channels.

via Econsultancy