Marketing Budget to 2015

Where will you focus your marketing efforts in 2012 and beyond? Shoring up your social media campaign? Refreshing your website? Or will you opt for more traditional marketing tactics?

According to a study by BIA/Kelsey 70% of small business marketing budgets will go to digital/online media (mobile, social, online directories, online display, digital outdoor), performance-based commerce (pay-per-click, deals, couponing) and customer retention business solutions (email, reputation and presence management, websites, social marketing, calendaring/appointment-setting).

Already, small businesses’ spend on their Web presence has almost doubled between 2008 and 2010 — another indication that businesses’ digital presence is becoming critical to their advertising strategies. (Read full article)

Before you decide, find out what your customers are doing online. Twitter may not be the optimum tactic to reach the 50+ crowd and other social media tactics are losing favor and new ones are hitting the radar every day. Stay on top of the trends but don’t jump on bandwagons too quickly. Technology, fads and marketers tend to move more quickly than the general population. Wait and watch. Which tactics are YOUR customer’s adopting and which ones fall from grace? This will help you figure out which channels you need to be using to reach them.