Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from MarketingCharts, a Watershed Publishing publication providing up-to-to-minute data and research to marketers.
In 2013, 47.3 percent of national brands expect to spend more on local marketing than they did this year, according to a new study from Balihoo, while an additional 44 percent plan to spend the same.
According to the latest report, Research Micro Study: National Brand Use of Digital in Local Marketing, brands will be placing an emphasis on digital marketing, which 67.5 percent of respondents rate as very or extremely important to their local efforts. Asked what digital marketing tactics they currently use, most pointed to social media other than Facebook (e.g., Twitter and LinkedIn, used by 75.5 percent); Facebook (69.3 percent); and search engine optimization (SEO, 66.2 percent).
The top three they'd like to add in 2013 are mobile marketing (used by 32 percent, with 35.4 percent planning to add it); local blogs (26 percent using; 31.5 percent planning to add) and online customer reviews (22.1 percent using and 31 percent planning use). Other tactics on the slate for 2013 include local search registration (with 19.5 percent planning to add it), pay-per-click advertising (19.0 percent), localized websites (16.2 percent) and digital display advertising (14.1 percent).
Other findings:
- Larger national brands of $500 million or more in annual revenues tend to use a wider mix of digital tactics than do smaller national brands of revenues between $100 million and $250 million.
- Only 22.6 percent of respondents are currently using local search registration and only 19.5 percent ranked it as a priority for 2013.
- A larger percentage of smaller national brands ($100M - $250M) are using Facebook and other social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) than the larger national brands ($500M+).
Results were based on 384 completed responses from individual companies via email surveys distributed August 1 - Sept 10, 2012. Respondents met the criteria of marketing professional, companies based in North America, companies with $100 million or greater annual revenue.