Canadian marketers are spendthrifts when compared to their counterparts around the world, according to Salesforce.com Inc.’s 2015 State of Marketing report.
Only Brazilians matched the zeal of Canadian marketers for hiking their spending in 2015. In both countries, 96 per cent of marketers said they planned to increase or maintain spending on marketing activities and technology this year. That compares to a global average of 84 per cent, and is significantly higher than our thrifty American neighbours to to south, sitting at 80 per cent.
Salesforce surveyed more than 5,000 marketers for its annual report last year, covering both business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Norway, United Kingdom, and the U.S. The Canadian data is based on 250 respondents.
So what are Canadian marketers planning to do with that new spending? It looks like 34 per cent are shifting it away from traditional mass advertising and towards digital channels. The top five areas for spending are dominated by digital categories: social media engagement (71 per cent), video advertising (70 per cent), social media advertising (69 per cent), mobile push notifications 69 per cent), and mobile applications (69 per cent).
Canadian marketers also tend to identify with marketing on digital channels as being core to their business. Almost seven out of 10 say email marketing is core to their business, 62 per cent feel the same about mobile marketing, and 68 per cent will say this of social media marketing. That is fairly in line with worldwide results, with 73 per cent of marketers globally saying that email is core to their business, with 92 per cent saying produces a return on investment.
Around the world, marketers are somewhat divided on how to measure their own success. About one-third consider revenue growth to be the best measure, while 30 per cent say customer satisfaction, 23 per cent return on investment, 23 per cent customer retention rates, and 23 per cent say customer acquisition.
The Salesforce report is dense with other marketing metrics including the most-commonly cited business challenges and the methods that marketers consider the most effective. It also details how marketers are increasingly focusing on creating a one-to-one relationship with customers and charting the customer journey.
Salesforce often cites the customer journey at its conference events and details the advantages of personalized marketing.
In a section about what technology marketers are using to craft the customer journey, it’s found that mobile applications, marketing analytics, and CRM tools rank as the top three. Salesforce.com, naturally, sells cloud solutions in all three of those categories.