Survey: Online Marketing In The Recession


Online Marketing Blog carried out a survey of 400 business marketers. They were asked a single question:

"What three internet marketing activities will you focus on over the next six months?"

The results of the poll were:
  • Search engine optimization (36%, 149 Votes)

  • Blogging (33%, 134 Votes)

  • Pay per click (26%, 107 Votes)

  • Email marketing (22%, 89 Votes)

  • Social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn) (21%, 86 Votes)

  • Blogger relations/blog PR (14%, 56 Votes)

  • Microblogging (Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku) (11%, 47 Votes)

  • Affiliate marketing (11%, 47 Votes)

  • Advertorial (NewsForce, AdFusion) (10%, 40 Votes)

  • Video marketing (7%, 29 Votes)

The results are very interesting, particularly the importance that online marketers are putting on blogging. Just two years ago blogging wouldn't have made the top ten, now it's number two.

Also SEO has found its way into most corporate marketing plans, even if the senior executives still don't really understand what it is. The term Search Engine Optimisation now masks many diverse activities.

Microblogging has really taken off this year, although in truth there are still only three million people worldwide registered with Twitter and most of them don't actively follow their feeds. It's still a world populated by geeks, but the wheels on the bandwagon are starting to turn. I believe microblogging is here to stay so it is worth investing the time to understand what it is and how it works. Read the article "Twitter, the Smart Way" to find out more.

For me the really big surprise is Advertorial. Paid placement of PR and stories has been shunned by most bloggers because they see it as lacking integrity and compromising their independence. However the websites of online newspapers and magazines are happy to get paid to post. It will be interesting to watch how this market evolves.

Video is now becoming commonplace on most popular blogs and online magazines. Multimedia will continue to become more important and it will soon be considered a critical part of every content website. Get on board now to stay ahead of the mass market.

Finally, everyone who reads my commentary, will know that I believe affiliate marketing will boom in recession. Marketers will scrutinize every bit of advertising spend and continually look for ways of improving the measurement of results. Affiliate marketing is the most measurable form of promotion there is as marketers only pay when they actually make a sale. Expect affiliate marketing to be in the top three next year.

To read the full article go to "SEO Tops Recession Internet Marketing"