Despite economic challenges continuing into the new year, marketing budgets are expected to increase at almost half of businesses in 2024, according to research from digital marketing agency Impression Digital.
A survey of 1,000 marketing professionals found that, alongside 47% of marketers anticipating an increase in budget, more than a third have plans to expand their internal marketing team. However, the number of marketers saying they expect a budget increase is down from 68% a year ago.
More encouragingly, while they may not all be seeing their budget increase, 70% of marketing professionals expect to see business growth in 2024. For 60% of marketers, their growth ambitions will be aided by work with external marketing resources, with organic activity being the work they will look to outsource the most.
Interestingly, increased budgets will mostly be directed toward the bottom of the funnel, with more than a quarter of marketers increasing their conversion efforts. Nonetheless, marketers also identified upper funnel marketing tactics, including influencer marketing and PR, as the biggest revenue drivers.
“Marketers might find themselves under increased pressure to prove effectiveness and as such, switch gears to a more conversion-focused strategy,” said Claire Elsworth, Strategy Director at Impression. “There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, provided the market conditions support it.
“If you are saturating your consumer base, increased acquisition or sales-focused activity might get very ineffective very quickly, and a refocus to activity which strengthens brand metrics earlier on in the purchase journey (“opening up the funnel”, as we used to say) might prove more fruitful,” Elsworth continued.
“Identify the jobs to be done for your brand, and build your approach around that rather than being solely influenced by trends which aren’t specific enough to your marketing challenges.”
