More than half of Australian companies plan to increase their marketing budgets this year, while 71% plan to boost their digital marketing spends, according to a new report.
The figures come from Responsys’ global annual Marketing Budgets report conducted in partnership with Econsultancy which predicts overall marketing budgets will jump 23% in 2013, while digital marketing budgets will hike 28%.
According to the report, digital investment is increasing the most in areas of search engine optimisation, email marketing for engagement and retention, and email marketing for acquisition.
Lead generation, video advertising and paid search also scored well.
But 34% of respondents pointed to company culture as a major challenge to further digital investment, with unsupportive management to blame.
Simon O’Day, VP Responsys Asia Pacific said: “While it’s good news that digital investment is rising, it’s still concerning that a third of marketers consider company culture a challenge preventing further growth. With digital now recognised as an essential channel for marketers, I am surprised this figure is so high.”
In the mobile space, mobile apps rated as the most popular channels used by marketers this year with 47% of marketers confirming they used apps, followed by QR codes (45%), mobile search marketing (39%), mobile-optimised emails (36%) and mobile advertising (34%).
SMS (32%), location-based marketing (27%), mobile commerce (24%) and mobile coupons (15%) also featured in the top ten. Near Field Communication, or NFC, was rated the least popular mobile channel, with only 8% of marketers nominating the technology as a method they used.
Econsultancy singled out location-based marketing as a huge growth area, despite its average score.
O’Day said: “While only a quarter of marketers are using location based marketing, this area is going to gain momentum over the next couple of years.
“With the availability of targeting technology there’s a real opportunity for marketers to be more intuitive and capture the consumer’s attention wherever they are.”
The report surveyed a total of 834 respondents, 457 of which were client side marketing professionals and 377 of which were supply side agency and technology experts.
