[March 14, 2017] |
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Less Than One-Quarter of Organizations Employ Optimal Digital Marketing Strategies, TEKsystems Survey Finds
TEKsystems (News - Alert)®, a leading provider of IT
staffing solutions and IT
services, today highlighted study findings that explore the current
state of digital marketing initiatives within organizations. More than
250 senior marketing executives were polled in January 2017 on their
expectations for spending, skill needs and organizational challenges in
2017. Data was examined on five subsets based on how organizations
self-identified the maturity of their digital marketing efforts.
Key highlights from the survey include:
Less than One-Quarter of Marketing Organizations Realize Full Digital
Maturity; Optimized Organizations Enjoy Greater Budget Growth and
Autonomy (News - Alert)
Q: Which of the following best describes the status of your
organization's digital marketing strategy?
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Responses
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Optimized - we have fully optimized our digital marketing strategy
to provide the best possible customer/user experience
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23%
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Integrated - we have developed a digital marketing strategy that
is integrated into our overall marketing strategy
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49%
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Informed - we have experience with digital marketing approaches
but are still formulating a strategy
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18%
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Ad hoc - we understand the potential of digital marketing and are
experimenting with different technologies and approaches
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10%
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Q: How has your organization's total marketing budget changed
from 2016 to 2017?
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Ad Hoc
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Informed
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Integrated
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Optimized
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Increase
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56%
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83%
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84%
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82%
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Stay the same
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36%
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13%
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12%
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18%
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Decrease
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8%
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4%
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4%
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0%
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Q: What percent of your organization's total 2017 marketing
budget is allocated to digital marketing?
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Ad hoc
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Informed
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Integrated
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Optimized
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31%
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35%
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36%
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48%
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Q: Which department is primarily responsible for marketing
technology acquisition at your organization?
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Department
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Ad hoc
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Informed
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Integrated
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Optimized
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Marketing
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64%
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65%
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75%
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82%
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IT
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28%
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15%
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17%
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7%
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Operations
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8%
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13%
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6%
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7%
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Other
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0%
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7%
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2%
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4%
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TEKsystems' Take: Less than one-quarter of organizations (23
percent) are experiencing the benefits of fully optimized digital
marketing programs. When comparing respondents who identify their
digital marketing programs as optimized to other groups, they tend to
experience higher levels of overall budget growth without any decline,
devote a higher percentage of their overall marketing budget to
digital efforts and maintain greater control of their marketing
technology investments.
Social Media, Digital Advertising and Mobile Marketing Stand Out as
Hallmarks of Organizations With Optimized Digital Marketing Programs
Q: What are your organization's top strategic digital priorities
for 2017? Stack rank the top three.
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Ranking
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Ad Hoc
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Informed
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Integrated
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Optimized
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1
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Digital Advertising (56%)
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Social Marketing (48%)
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Social Marketing (48%)
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Digital Advertising (54%)
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2
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Social Marketing (40%)
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Company Website Design (46%)
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Digital Advertising (48%)
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Social Marketing (40%)
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3
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Company Website Design (40%)
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Content Development (39%)
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Content Development (35%)
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Company Website Design (39%)
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4
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Email Marketing (40%)
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Digital Advertising (39%)
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Email Marketing (34%)
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Content Development (35%)
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5
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Content development (28%)
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Email Marketing (30%)
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Company Website Design (32%)
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Mobile Marketing (32%)
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Q: On which digital marketing approaches will your organization
focus the most time and resources? Stack rank the top three.
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Ranking
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Ad Hoc
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Informed
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Integrated
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Optimized
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1
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Social Media (72%)
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Social Media (76%)
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Social Media (74%)
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Social Media (62%)
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2
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Video (48%)
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Video (52%)
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Mobile (52%)
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Mobile (53%)
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3
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Native Advertising (44%)
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Paid (News - Alert) Search (46%)
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Paid Search (50%)
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Paid Search (51%)
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4
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Paid Search (40%)
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Native Advertising (41%)
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Video (45%)
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Programmatic* (51%)
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5
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Programmatic * (40%)
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Mobile (39%)
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Programmatic* (40%)
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Native Advertising (44%)
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*The algorithmic purchase and sale of advertising space in real time.
During this process, software is used to automate the buying, placement,
and optimisation of media inventory via a bidding system.
Q: What are your organization's top technology investment areas
for 2017? Stack rank the top three.
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Ranking
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Ad Hoc
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Informed
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Integrated
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Optimized
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1
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Website (36%)
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Website (43%)
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Website (43%)
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Website (35%)
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2
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Content Management (36%)
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Content Management (43%)
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Content Management (34%)
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Customer Experience (35%)
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3
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Advertising Operations (32%)
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Marketing Operations (33%)
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Customer Experience (33%)
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Marketing Operations (35%)
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4
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Customer Experience (32%)
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Social Publishing/Listening Tools (33%)
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Marketing Analytics (31%)
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Mobile Marketing (32%)
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5
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Advertising Operations (32%)
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Customer Experience (30%)
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Mobile Marketing (29%)
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Emerging Technologies (28%)
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TEKsystems' Take: While there are commonalities across all
marketing organizations-such as social media being the most
time/resource intensive area and website being the top investment
area-differences do emerge as organizations grow in their digital
marketing maturity. As organizations mature towards optimization, they
tend to expand attention and investment beyond rich, site-based,
non-invasive aspects (i.e., content development, video development) to
also focus on more outwardly focused and trackable efforts (i.e.,
digital advertising, social media, mobility). This "tailored" mindset
also helps explain why customer experience emerges as one of the top
investment areas for optimized organizations-as they seek greater
understanding on personalization and customer journey elements as they
interact with their customers. Optimized organizations are also able
to invest in more cutting-edge areas, such as programmatic advertising
and emerging technologies (e.g., VR, augmented reality, predictive
analytics).
Budget Overruns and ROI Less of a Challenge for Digitally Optimized
Marketing Organizations; Digitally Mature Organizations Shift Focus to
More Advanced Concepts
Q: What are your marketing organization's most significant
challenges for meeting goals and objectives in 2017? Stack rank the
top three.
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Ranking
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Ad Hoc
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Informed
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Integrated
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Optimized
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1
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Budget Overruns (52%)
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Budget Overruns (52%)
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Budget Overruns (63%)
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Budget Overruns (47%)
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2
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Organizational Alignment (32%)
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Organizational Alignment (48%)
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Value Measurements / ROI (44%)
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Scope and Architecture (40%)
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3
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Value measurements/ROI (32%)
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Value Measurements / ROI (41%)
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Organizational Alignment (42%)
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Organizational Alignment (39%)
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4
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Scope and Architecture (28%)
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Internal talent (28%)
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Internal Talent (31%)
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External Partnerships (35%)
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5
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Internal talent (24%)
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External Partnerships (28%)
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Scope and Architecture (30%)
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Value measurements/ROI (35%)
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Q: Which of the following digital marketing trends do you expect
to be the most challenging to respond to in 2017? Stack rank the top
three.
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Ranking
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Ad Hoc
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Informed
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Integrated
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Optimized
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1
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Custom Content Development (24%)
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UX / Customer Journey Analytics (39%)
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Multi-channel/Cross- platform Marketing (30%)
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UX / Customer Journey Analytics (32%)
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2
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Predictive Analytics (24%)
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Multi-channel/Cross- platform marketing (37%)
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Custom Content Development (30%)
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Multi-channel/Cross- platform Marketing (25%)
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3
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Website Personalization (24%)
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Video/Motion Graphics (28%)
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Predictive Analytics (30%)
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Predictive Analytics (25%)
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4
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Programmatic (20%)
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"Mobile First" Approach (24%)
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UX/Customer Journey Analytics (29%)
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Conversion Rate Optimization (23%)
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5
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Multi-channel/Cross- platform Marketing (20%)
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Programmatic
(24%)
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Mobile Analytics (21%)
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Custom Content Development (21%)
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TEKsystems' Take: While still a source of concern, those who
report that their digital marketing programs are optimized are the
only group where less than 50 percent cite budget overruns as a
concern, perhaps due to their ability to provide verifiable ROI and
the resulting ability to dedicate resources appropriately.
Additionally, this is the only group where more than 40 percent
indicate scope and architecture as a significant challenge,
reinforcing their role as an independent purchaser of technology.
Optimized respondents also seem to be more focused on operationalizing
their digital marketing efforts with a focus on the more advanced
concepts of user experience, ominchannel marketing, conversion rates
and analytics.
"What we're seeing here are clear differences between organizations at
different points along the digital maturation curve. Those with
optimized digital marketing strategies also show much greater ownership
of technology and spend within the marketing function and a more
advanced approach to digital marketing" says Steve Aleckson, director of TEKsystems
Digital. "Less digitally mature organizations are clearly most
challenged with untangling responsibility for customer engagement
between marketing, core IT and other stakeholders regarding budget,
technology and talent. This makes it harder for less mature
organizations to connect with customers effectively, and the gap between
them and leading-edge marketers will only get bigger." Said Aleckson,
"The competition for talent remains a top struggle, and organizations
with a clearer strategy and digital roadmap have the advantage in
workforce planning-but marketing leaders have to make a strong business
case in order to move the needle towards an optimized strategy."
TEKsystems will be exhibiting at Adobe (News - Alert) Summit 2017 (booth No. 848),
March 21-23, at the Venetian and Palazzo resorts in Las Vegas.
TEKsystems' Steve Aleckson is available for additional commentary. For
more information about the survey, or to schedule an interview, please
contact Nathan Bowen at [email protected].
About TEKsystems®
People are at the heart of every successful business initiative. At
TEKsystems, an Allegis Group company, we understand people. Every year
we deploy more than 80,000 IT professionals at 6,000 client sites across
North America, Europe and Asia. Our deep insights into IT human capital
management enable us to help our clients achieve their business
goals-while optimizing their IT workforce strategies. We provide IT
staffing solutions and IT services to help our clients plan, build and
run their critical business initiatives. Through our range of
quality-focused delivery models, we meet our clients where they are, and
take them where they want to go, the way they want to get there.
TEKsystems. Our people make IT possible.
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View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170314006058/en/
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