Report: 55% of Marketers Have Increased Demand Gen Activity Since the COVID-19 Outbreak

New research suggests that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, marketers expected their marketing budgets to grow more than their demand generation budgets. However, statistics now favor demand gen budget growth as the pandemic continues to unfold.

Activate recently published the “State of Demand Gen 2020” report, and data showed that since the pandemic began, 55% of marketers have increased demand gen activity. Despite the current climate, 78% of respondents also stated that they expect their demand gen budgets to either grow or stay the same.

Some of the reasons why demand gen activity has grown since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic include budget reallocation from events (59%), a need to fill a fall in pipeline (42%), and budget reallocation from other marketing activities (34%).

Content Marketing and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Demand gen is not the only area that marketers are investing in amid the current climate, as previous research suggests that they are also relying heavily on content marketing as a tactic.

Chief Marketer conducted its “COVID-19 Marketing Outlook” report, and statistics indicated that prior to the pandemic, most marketers (48%) believed that content marketing would consume more of their marketing budget this year than it did in 2019. After the pandemic began, 39% of marketers still said the same, suggesting that their investment in content will hold steady throughout the end of 2020.

In regards to return-on-investment (ROI), the majority of marketers (41%) stated that content marketing was at the top of the list before the pandemic started. That being said, it still led the way in ROI after the COVID-19 outbreak, with most marketers (47%) still citing it at the top of their list.