brand marketing blog

A recent survey conducted by Bellwether discovered that more than 25% of UK companies are continuing to reduce their marketing spend. Check out this graph...

Whilst the continued reduction in traditional media spend is not surprising, what really interests me is how the spend in online marketing continues to grow, despite the recession. It's also interesting to note that advertising mediums that are less targeted at a specific group (i.e. general media) tend to have lost the most share.

The closer the medium gets to targeting a tightly defined market, the less it has been affected. The natural conclusion is that online marketing, which is inherently well focused on specific target market segments, has significantly outperformed offline media. The most targeted medium being organic search, is the clear winner in the recessionary marketing spend wars.

This report doesn't surprise me really. Our own experience with our in-house marketing as well as results from our clients campaigns have clearly supported the value of online marketing, particularly in achieving good organic results in Google searches (by organic I mean not 'paid for' as in Google AdWords).

The key elements in organic search marketing are:

- Search engine optimisation - improving the visibility of your website in Google
- Targeted content generation - creating unique content targeted at specific keywords
- Landing page optimisation - generating the desired action from visitors to your web pages

I think one of the reasons many companies are afraid of committing a larger percentage of their promotional budget to online marketing, is that results are not instant. There is no online quick fix - it takes time and requires commitment and patience, but the long term results and ROI are very real.

The recession isn't over yet, but now's the right time to start developing your online marketing strategy and getting your brand out there. By the time the economy recovers you will be in pole position.