Key Findings From U.S. Digital Marketing Spending Survey 2013

http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/digital-marketing/digital-marketing-spend-report.jsp

Since I do not have permission to reproduce any of this, I hope the link above is quid-pro-quo. I recommend reading the whole report at the link above. Here are two points that I believe are accurate and relevant.

Figure 3 shows that marketers allocated 12.5% — the biggest share of their digital marketing budget…Content creation and management account for the second largest share of digital marketing budgets. This is driven, in part, by the desire to populate the infinite appetites of inbound marketing channels. Social networks, customer forums, and the blogosphere are examples that drive inbound inquiries or actions. However, you need to create content that delivers the right message to the right person at the right time, regardless of how the dialogue gets started. That means content is equally needed to meet the demands of outbound marketing as well. The enormous pressure to create, manage and distribute content for multiple marketing activities through the right channels will only increase as customers use more digital channels for collaboration, researching and acquisition of products and services.

Top priorities for increased budgets in 2013 are commerce experiences, social and mobile marketing, and content creation and management.

Figure 7 shows that the corporate website and digital advertising share the distinction of being the No. 1 digital marketing activities that are important to marketing’s success.