Technology Marketing Ideas

Marketing stat of the week

So IDC found that nearly two-thirds of technology firms plan to cut their marketing budgets in the first half of ’09 creating an aggregate decline in spending of about 15%. That’s a heap of cash. This info is from an article in the March 9 issue of BtoB Magazine. Right below this article is another entitled “Emerson sees recession as ‘opportune time.’ Guess what this article’s about? Right. Leveraging the economic downturn to turn up their marketing volume when their competitors are turning theirs down. Obviously it’s easier to gain mindshare and build brand awareness when there are fewer messages to compete with. It’s a sound approach. Once you become invisible the market begins to forget.

Marketing thought of the week

According to a study just conducted by Borrell Associates (http://www.borrellassociates.com/), SMB spending on "non-advertising" marketing will more than triple over the next 5 years. They predict that banner ads, which now account for 47% of SMB interactive spending will diminish significantly while paid search and video will make up 2/3 of their online spending. If this is correct the demand for videographers and editors should grow like crazy over the next few years. Every PR and marketing firm is either going to have to have this capability inhouse or have a relationship with a video service provider.

Marketing stat of the week

According to a study just released by The Kelsey Group there are 54 million mobile Internet users in the U.S. They forecast that the percentage of mobile searches that have local content will increase from 28% in 2008 to 35% in 2013. Will that have an impact on what technology firms should be doing regarding optimizing for local search?

Given that habits, once entrenched, are hard to change, it's safe to say that all types of firms, technology firms included (or especially) should be paying attention to local search and the impact of mobile search. The growing number of mobile users using local search should not be ignored - even if that category is not going to return huge numbers for your business.