2009 Marketing Trends

Marketing executives are going back to basics this year, putting renewed focus on satisfying and retaining customers and investing in research and insights, but they are “sick” of hearing about Web 2.0, according to a survey from Anderson Analytics conducted for the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG). The second annual survey examined the top marketing concepts, buzzwords, global areas of opportunity and targeted customer demographics for 2009, as well as the books and thought leaders that marketers look to for inspiration and growth opportunity.

The Top Five Trends:

1. Insight and Innovation are Key: Greater insight and innovation are viewed as keys drivers to combat down economic and business cycles.

2. Customers at Top of List: Basic customer satisfaction and customer retention remained the top two concepts of interest to marketers, followed by marketing ROI, brand loyalty and segmentation. Together, these represent a move back to the core principles of marketing.

3. Green Marketing and Global Warming Lose Importance: The issue of global warming showed the largest decrease in importance (dropping 14 places in the rankings), while green marketing showed a statistically significant 5% drop.

4. Marketers “Sick” of Web 2.0: Twice as many marketers are “sick” of hearing about Web 2.0 and related buzzwords such as “blogs” and “social networking” compared with last year’s survey.

5. Most Opportunity in China and among Boomers: China ranks as the #1 greatest area of opportunity (53%) for marketers with international responsibility, while India is a distant second.

I think this represents a return to marketing basics and certainly reduced budgets will necessitate a more intelligent and targeted use of resources.

Gareth