BtoBonline.com recently released the results of a survey they did around marketing budgets for 2009 and 2010.  53% of the 495 respondents said that they expected their marketing budget to go up in 2010. You can download the study results here.

It’s no surprise that around 43% shared that their budgets in 2009 went down by a significant margin this year. Interestingly, 23% say their budgets actually went up this year.  65% said that their online marketing budget was increasing this year as well which shows the shift of marketing budgets from the more traditional methods over to online. 

In regards to where they plan on spending their online budget, 63.8% of respondents will increase spending on Web site development; 61.6% will increase e-mail marketing; 49.5% will increase search; and 46.2% will increase social media. the categories seeing The areas companies plan on focusing on in the second half of this year are Web site development (43.5%), e-mail marketing (44.1%), social media (35.2%), search (33.0%) and webcasts (24.5%).

When asked about social media, 50.6% of the respondents said their company uses it today as part of their marketing strategy. Those that said they use social media today stated that they do so in the following ways; Advertising (40.1%), Marketing Research (40.1%), Customer Feedback (48.9%), Generate Leads (51.9%), Thought Leadership (57.3%), and Other (11.8%).

It’s great to see that so many companies are using social media with the intent to generate leads and improve their inbound marketing via creating thought leadership content.  As marketers start to tie goals to their social media experience, we expect this area to continue to grow.

Today I attended a webinar by MarketingProfs and Citrix titled, “Business-to-Business Marketing Trends 2009: Dramatic Changes in Dramatic Times”.  All in all, I’m glad I attended as the webinar was based on their study of around five hundred businesses and pretty informative.

The most intriguing slide to me was the one that listed the five B-to-B marketing tactics expected to increase in 2009:

1. Search Marketing – 46%
2. Online Video – 40%
3. Discussion Forums – 38%
4. Webinars – 38%
5. Email – 37%

It’s interesting to note that none of these are considered traditional forms of lead generation (maybe email but that has nowhere near the history of direct marketing or conferences).

Another item of interest was what businesses listed as their most effective tactics for lead generation.  In order of most effective, they were:

1. Executive Breakfasts
2. Inside Sales
3. Webinars

I definitely think face-to-face events like breakfasts and after work functions will always be the best way for making connections but I can see webinars and social media continuing to increase the generation of qualified leads.

Towards the end there was a great slide about how the power and process of the deal is changing from the Seller to the Customer.  We have said this before (see “Don’t Believe Me, Just Ask Me: A Major Issue in B2B“) and it’s great to see it presented by others.  Through no fault of their own, Sellers in B2B have historically been the information gatekeepers and the latest technologies and trends (If you’re someone that needs to label things, you can call it Web 2.0) have turned that process on its head.  Here are some bullet points from the slide.

Then

• Seller in control (size matters)
• Seller converts prospect to a lead and identifies decision maker as fast as possible
• (NOTE: There were more but my perception of how great my multi-tasking skills are is obviously inflated compared to reality as I wasn’t fast enough to write them all.  Sorry.)

Now

• Buyer in control
• Buyer qualifies the seller for participation in the consideration set and dictates timing
• Seller’s success depends on engagement and trust (lead nurture)
• User conversation to drive preference and loyalty

Thanks to MarketingProfs and Citrix for sharing their findings.