Report: Proving the Value of Marketing is Top Concern in 2018

Marketers may attempt to budget accordingly throughout the year, but new research indicates that they still fear wasting funds on investments that may not generate ROI.

Rakuten Marketing recently conducted the “What Marketers Want in 2018: Five Strategic Opportunities for 2018” report, polling more than 1,000 marketers across the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Asia-Pacific region.

Overall, fear of budget waste was a common trend among marketers. In the U.S., marketers said they expect at least 30 percent of their budgets to be lost to poor strategic planning and/or incorrect channel focus.

Forty-four percent of U.S. marketers also said that proving the value of marketing was a top concern in 2018. About 42 percent stated that they thought establishing a positive perception of marketing as an organizational discipline was going to be a challenge.

That being said, U.S. marketers know how they want to use their budgets in 2018. Video remains a top priority (68 percent), along with written content (63 percent) and image-led content (58 percent).

Marketers Remain Invested in Video Content

Although marketers may be challenged in terms of their spending and budgets, video has remained a constant focus, according to previous research.

Wyzowl published “The State of Video Marketing 2018” assessing how both customers and marketers are using video content. This year, interactive video adoption among marketers is expected to increase from 1-in-5 marketers to almost 1-in-3.

At the moment, 81 percent of organizations already use video as a marketing tool. This is an increase from the 63 percent who that stated that they were doing so back in 2017.