Follow Up On Search Marketing and Recession

Earlier this month I wrote a blog post titled “Why You Should Cut Back Search Marketing In a Recession“.

The title of the post was purposely provocative. 

I actually spent much of the article laying out reasons why other marketing/advertising methods are either more vulnerable to spending cutbacks, or are how search marketing can strengthen campaigns in other media.

I was happy to see that in a recent article on BtoBOnline that many of my assertions about spending decisions for B2B companies are being validated by B2B marketers themselves.

The online survey was conducted in the last week of January and the first week of February (2008).  684 b-to-b marketers participated in the survey.

“58.3% of marketers have not revised their original 2008 marketing budgets, and 29.4% revised their marketing budgets down in response to recent concerns about a possible recession in the U.S.

Of those that have revised their budgets down, the channel that will see the greatest decline is print (cited by 45.3% of marketers), followed by events (17.3%), broadcast (10.0%), direct (8.7%), online (6.0%), outdoor (2.0%) and other (10.7%).

Of those that have revised their budgets up, the area that will see the greatest increase is online (48.5%), followed by direct (16.5%), events (13.5%), print (9.0%), broadcast (3.0%), outdoor (0.4%) and other (9.1%).”

The graphic below is taken directly from the article: