Except for the recent threat of recall suggesting elevated levels of tin and antimony, Zhu Zhu pets have been the coveted (and oddly affordable) toy of the season.
Social media is the Zhu Zhu darling of marketing budgets, along with email marketing, according to the 2010 "Marketing Trends Survey" conducted by StrongMail (not coincidentally an email marketing and social media company). In this survey of 1,000 global business leaders, 89% stated that they would maintain or increase their budgets in email marketing and social media. 48% are increasing their marketing budgets next year over 2009. Events, which includes trade shows, and direct mail lead the initiatives that will receive less money. 28% said they would increase their spending on advertising to 32% who said they would decrease it.
The big trend (69%) is expected to be the integration of social media and email marketing campaigns in 2010. But interestingly, of those organizations who have already integrated them, only 42% are achieving a lift in campaign performance. 35% receive no significant lift and 23% say they are unable to measure.
A great advantage of email marketing and social media is that you can track activity, interest and return better than many marketing initiatives. But even still, the largest number of survey respondents (64%) still noted that the greatest benefit of social media is increasing awareness.
According to this survey, the other areas where investment is increasing are: PR, mobile, search engine optimization and marketing,
SOURCES: Center for Media Research, StrongMail