cmo's to increase spending on social media but integration still lacking | the star group

8/4/2019 CMO's to Increase Spending on Social Media but Integration Still Lacking | the Star Group

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By Steve Olenski (/blog/contributors/steve-olenski)

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CMO's To Increase Spending On SocialMedia But Integration Still Lacking

Posted on Thu, Sep 8th,

2011

A survey of nearly 250 marketing top marketing executives revealed an

overall increase of spending of 9.1% over the next 12 months but... the

survey also revealed that integration is still a long way off.

Conducted by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, the twice a yearsurvey "collects and disseminates the opinions of top marketers in order to

predict the future of markets, track marketing excellence, and improve the value

of marketing in firms and society."

And just as I did with the Trends In Social Advertising Survey (../../blog/trends-

social-advertising-survey-behind-numbers) by Brian Solis and The Pivot

Conference, I am once again... going behind the numbers. My natural curiosity

must come from watching all those mystery and copy shows growing up... is

there such a thing as too much Columbo?

Nah...

Anyway, while I am happy to report that overall marketing spending is expected

to increase over 9% over the next 12 months as per the survey findings - there

are some intriguing, if not disconcerting, additional findings form the survey I

want to bring to your attention.

The first one has to do with the overall spending increase itself. Look at the chart

below...

CMO's To Increase Spending On Social Media But ... http://www.stargroup1.com/blog/cmo-increase-s

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Now, you'l see the aforementioned 9.1% increase but look at the trend from the

February to August for each of 2010 and 2011. I realize it's only two years we're

talking about but why the up and down from February to August each year?

When the CMOs were asked in February about spending were they coming off

poor holiday, end-of-year numbers and thus indicated via the survey they don't

plan on spending as much as they indicated a few months later in August?

Were there different respondents at differing times of the survey to cause the

fluctuation? Not sure how about that because if there were different responders,

it would be one helluva coincidence then that these February to Augustresponses were nearly identical. Unless of course different CMOs from different

industries responded to the February survey than to those who responded to the

August one.

More Emphasis On Price, Less On Innovation

Call it a sign of the times, the economic times that is but CMOs are putting a

higher priority on price, which had the highest percentage increase (9.7%) form

February to August - and less priority on innovation, which had the highest

percentage decrease (6.8&) from February to August.

My fear is more companies are going to lower prices to solely increase sales -

coupons, daily deals, etc., while sacrificing quality and innovation and service in

the process.

Another disconcerting finding from the survey is the fact that spending on

traditional advertising is decreasing. Now to all those CMOs who are in fact

decreasing spending on traditional advertising, I would simply say 'don't go too

far the other way.' What I mean by that is don't from rob from Peter (traditional)

to pay for Paul (digital). I'm not saying that is in fact what's going on here but just

in case it was... I want to remind CMOs that's all about and always will be about

one word: Integration. I am a huge proponent of integration. How huge? Well

consider that just said so in a post titled Why An Integrated Marketing Strategy

Is Vital To Success. (http://www.stargroup1.com/blog/why-integrated-marketing-

strategy-vital-success)

I'm also a huge proponent of social media and its use in any integrated

marketing strategy.

It would appear however, that many CMO's agree with the former, and not so

much the latter.

Spending On Social Media Up, Integration Still Lags

Behind


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As a percentage of overall marketing budgets, spending on social media is

expected to increase 17.5% over the next five years.

That's the good news. The bad news is "...marketers admitted they have a ways

to go toward integrating social media in their strategy. On a scale of 1-7, with

one being "not integrated at all" and seven being "very integrated," almost a

quarter of marketers (22.3 percent ) selected "one" to describe how well their

company's social media is integrated with the firm's overall strategy.

The number was only slightly better for integration within the marketing strategy

-- 16.9 percent selected "one" for this question. Only 9.1 percent chose "seven"

for social media being integrated within the company's strategy (the average

was 3.4) and 12.8 percent selected "seven" for the marketing strategy (the

average was 4.0)."

For her part, Christine Moorman (http://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/%7Emoorman

/bio/) , the T. Austin Finch Senior Professor of Business Administration at Duke's

Fuqua School of Business and the director ofThe CMO Survey

(http://www.cmosurvey.org/results) had this to say about social media ingeneral... "Social media is fast becoming an important strategic weapon in

company arsenals and has proven to be a valuable tool in acquiring and

engaging customers. Effective use of social media is no longer an option for

companies -- it is a requirement. Going forward, companies which most

effectively deploy social media will be best positioned to serve their client bases,

particularly as digitally-savvy customers assume a greater percentage of buying

power."

And this to say about social media and integration or lack thereof... ""It is also

important that companies keep spending on social media among internal groups

and not outsource it. Outsourcing increases the likelihood that social media and

strategy will not be integrated."

I will agree with her on her first part for when she says "...companies which most

effectively deploy social media will be best positioned to serve their client bases,particularly as digitally-savvy customers assume a greater percentage of buying

power" she is dead on. Trust me the number of digitally-savvy customers is

growing each and every day and right along with it is their collective buying

power.

However, I will disagree with her stance that "... outsourcing increases the

likelihood that social media and strategy will not be integrated." There are

marketing communications agencies, like the Star Group - full transparency

here, that live and breathe integration (http://www.stargroup1.com) every single


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All comments Replies to my comment

day.

Ok, let's hear from you.

Do you plan on increasing overall marketing spending with an emphasis on

social media?

Do you think an integrated marketing strategy is key or does it really depend on

the audience and customer and where there most likely to be found - offline or

off?

Are you a CMO or one who makes decisions for your organization?

Sources: cmosurvey.org (http://www.cmosurvey.org) , fuqua.duke.edu

(http://www.fuqua.duke.edu)

Tags: Brian Solis (/category/tags/brian-solis) Christine Moorman (/category

/tags/christ ine-moorman) digital advertising (/category/tags/digital-

advertising) Fuqua School Of Business (/category/tags/fuqua-school-

business) integrated marketing strategy (/category/tags/integrated-marketing-

strategy) social media (/category/tags/social-media) The CMO Survey

(/category/tags/cmo-survey) The Pivot Conference (/category/tags/pivot-

conference) traditional advertising (/category/tags/traditional-advertising)

Trends In Social Advertising Survey (/category/tags/trends-social-advertising-

survey-0)

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