Majority of Companies Seeking to Differentiate Through Customer Experience in 2015

According to the “2015 Digital Trends Briefing,” recently published by Econsultancy and Adobe, 78 percent of companies will try to differentiate through customer experience in 2015.

The data also shows that 69 percent of companies will be experimenting heavily with digital marketing in the next 12 months as part of the effort to differentiate as well. Cross-channel marketing was third in priority, coming in at 60 percent from those surveyed.

As companies revamp their marketing strategies, they are re-prioritizing their goals as well. About 30 percent of people said that targeting and personalization will be prioritized in their plans for 2015. Nearly 29 percent said content optimization would be a priority, while 27 percent responded with social media engagement.

The briefing also revealed that more companies are integrating digital marketing into their marketing plans as a whole. Only 20 percent of respondents said that they separate their digital efforts from their entire marketing plan at the moment.

However, digital and traditional marketing budgets were not always intertwined, as previous research shows.

The Fine Line Between Digital and Traditional

In November 2014, Gartner released a survey that showed that 68 percent of companies had a separate digital marketing budget. That being said, researchers noted that it was challenging to determine exactly how much money is being spent on digital initiatives – each company appeared to treat its budget differently.

Gartner discovered that one-quarter of marketing budgets was spent on digital marketing in 2014, and 51 percent of respondents intended to increase their digital marketing spend in 2015.

Out of the companies that said they would be boosting their budgets within the next 12 months, the average increase was 10.4 percent. However, companies that were outperforming their competitors predicted an average increase of 13.6 percent.

“The line between digital and traditional marketing continues to blur,” said Laura McLellan, research vice president at Gartner, at the time of the survey release. “For marketers in 2014, it’s less about digital marketing than marketing in a digital world.”