lustratus REPAMA

...falling in 2009. No great surprise there then as marketing budgets have been used by many struggling organisations as a “profit shock absorber” .

But what is of interest is what that reduced budget has meant to the shape of marketing organisations and their priorities. How are they actually allocating remaining budget in these tough times? What has this meant to marketing headcount? etc.

That is the focus of IDC’s Michael Gerard in his annual analysis of marketing spend. Some snippets of the study have been released publicly and I’ve listed some of these below:

• Large organisations’ marketing budgets have on average reduced by 8.3% and their headcount has reduced by 10%
• 6000 IT vendor marketing roles have been lost worldwide in 2009
• Lack of budget has forced process improvements and in particualar has meant closer collaboration with sales
• Broader, product portfolio marketing has been sacrificed to allow for more tactical themed campaigns.
• Sales enablement has become a focus

Michael makes some other general observations and recommendations in his blog which is well worth a read.

Danny Goodall

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