Recent figures show that as well as a shift in marketing spend to online for Q1 of 2009 78% of both UK and European businesses are to increase their online advertising and marketing budgets for the rest of the year. In the current economic downturn this can only be seen as a positive for online and a view as to where businesses will need to focus on in the future to compete and a real indicator that traditional media may be a thing of the past.
A blog I posted recently describes how advertisers are using traditional media to persuade searchers to carry out online actions. However many are also seeing a vast drop in ROI from other forms of Traditional media which in turn is resulting in a vast downturn in ad-spends on various mediums..
TV advertising – Has seen an overall 37% drop in business, seeing advertisers utilizing online videos and TV instead ( a great example is the AvenueA/Razorfish online Asda ads soon to be showing online)
Direct Mail – Has seen a 24% decrease is this due to email shots?
Radio – Has seen the least effect from the economic downturn with only a 12% decrease.
Magazines – Have been the hardest hit to date with a massive drop of 46%.
The drops in traditional advertising and increases in online advertising mean that many businesses are channeling all their efforts into their online campaigns and we are seeing vast numbers of companies competing for the same spots using the same search terms. This is the time to make sure that your campaigns are working for you and to make sure that you are simply not just sitting back and hoping for the search engine elves to do the work for you. Maybe this is even the time to take on board a Search Marketing agency to help compete in the marketplace after all we usually have the know how and the tricks of the trade on our side. PPC companies can really help out with the day to day stuff to help your campaigns flourish and in saturated market places you really need to be on the ball with your campaigns, testing and tweaking daily…..Do you have the time??…..Really??
