eMarketer reports that according to the results of a recent market study of business-to-business (B2B) marketers, traditional online tactics are still important.
Just over half of B2B marketers surveyed told BtoB Magazine their budgets would go up this year, but by less than 15 percent.
The primary marketing goal was customer acquisition (69%), with the greatest number of respondents expected spending increases for online (78%).
In contrast, 44 percent of the survey respondents said they would be spending more on events and 36 percent said more on direct mail.
Online, B2B marketers were most likely to report planned increases in spending on their websites and email programs, followed by social media.
These results differed from those of a survey by RSW/US. Among that group, 65 percent planned to spend more on social media, followed by 47 percent on email.
Overall, more than two-thirds of B2B marketers already used social media marketing, where the main focus of marketing efforts was brand building.
Even though customer acquisition was stated as the top B2B goal, less than half of the respondents were actually using social media for sales lead generation.
In 2010, social media, websites and email each received a median of 10 percent of B2B online marketing budgets. Apparently, spending levels were higher on display and video advertising.