Consumers’ preference for multiple browsing and shopping channels has retailers reallocating their marketing budgets, and looking to increase digital spending for 2012. Social ecommerce was one of the first big shifts in digital shopping, as 87 percent of retailers recently surveyed employ a Facebook strategy, and 82 percent a Twitter campaign, with each platform expecting an additional eight percent in the next 12 months. However, according to a survey of 110 retailers conducted by the e-tailing group for email platform provider, Bronto Software, retailers plan to spend marketing dollars on more than social media, and are looking to invest in paid search, email and SEO, as well as mobile channels and data analytics.
The Projected Breakdown of Digital Spending in 2012
The retailers surveyed identified paid search (30 percent), email (18 percent) and SEO (11 percent) as their top priorities when it comes to allocating marketing funds. But as Multichannel Merchant highlights from the survey, “In the coming year, retailers said they may shift these priorities in response to changing dynamics in today’s marketing landscape.” Social networks are recognized as a means to pull in more revenue, and have retailers looking to increase spending on social strategies, including blogs and social networks. The infrastructure of the Internet now enables the sharing of information among networks at a speed and scale that has been impossible in the offline world. For this reason, 14 percent of retailers surveyed believe social media will be a top performing channel in 2012.
Regarding other revenue generation, merchants also expect SEO (31 percent), mobile/m-commerce (30 percent), email (22 percent) and paid search (22 percent) to be among the top performing channels. Consumers show conclusively that they aren’t going to sit passively and let retailers push products at them. Consumers have taken control of the dialogue, and they insist on being (digitally) heard, and the 2012 marketing budget indicates that they have been heard. Retailers are running pell-mell towards digital channels and making them a permanent part of their marketing strategy.
This piece has been adapted from an original article on Multichannel Merchant.