A shift in B2B marketing spend.

The headline in this week’s edition of B2B Magazine proclaims the good news that marketing budgets for B2B marketers is going up in 2008.  The survey of 213 marketers found that the majority of those interviewed (over 50%) anticipated a budget increase in the 5-14% range over last year. 

That sounds great on the surface, but what a closer examination of the story will tell you is that the biggest parts of the budgets seeing increases are online marketing and event marketing/trade shows.

What’s this mean for agencies and trade pubs trying to ride the wave of increased budgets for 2008?

It means it “ain’t gonna happen” – not this year, anyway.The rationale for spending more money on events and trade show marketing can be seen easily enough.  Marketers are looking at a tough economy in ‘08 and are concerned primarily with customer acquisition.  In fact, nearly 2/3rds of those interviewed said acquisition was their top priority.  Leaving little to chance, it’s much easier to tie sales results – and new customer sales in particular – to a face-to-face experience.

So what’s behind the increase in online spending?

Some of it is the perception that new customer acquisition can be managed much easier with online marketing.  The targets can be drawn tighter and many parts of the sales process can be automated.  

But what is really at work here is a migration from older business marketing traditions (i.e. advertising in trade journals) to a much more measurable media in online.  This move has less to do with the economy and more to do with economics.  Business marketers like the measurability of online marketing programs, that’s a fact.

For agencies, though, all is not lost with a move to the online world.  You don’t have to be a tech-savvy shop to benefit during and after the digital migration.  Instead, agencies (both external and internal) need to focus on the messages and the methodologies used online. 

Greater process measurement means an implied ability to break everything down to a very granular level.  Marketers can (and should) figure out what’s working, what’s not and (most importantly) why.  More than ever before, marketers need to consider matching their investment in online marketing with increases in their research budget.  The financial benefits from such a move could be significant.

Finally, let me say this about B2B’s survey.  And I’m not trying to sound catty about it.  But the survey pool was too small for the methodology used.  The survey was conducted via an online survey tool (like Zoomerang or Survey Monkey) and a total of 213 companies participated.  While this pool might provide a general sense of what ALL business-to-business marketers might plan on doing next year, the survey group appears to be too small to provide any kind of clarity on trends within industry sectors  (general or specific).

But hey, the survey is done and available for free to those who want to review it.  (B2B 2008 Budget Forecast)