In a recent survey of senior marketers at technology companies, the International Data Corporation (IDC) CMO Advisory Service found that two-thirds are expecting budget increases for 2014.
Additionally, IDC forecasts that marketing budgets within the technology industry will increase 1,5% to 2,5% overall in 2014.
Third Platform companies – those with revenue primarily from cloud, social, mobile, and big data and analytics technologies – will see marketing budget increases that are six times greater than the rest of the industry, increasing their marketing spending between 8% and 12%.
Despite the projected gains, the average marketing budget increase is still less than half the surveyed companies’ projected revenue increase of 4,6%.
“IDC consistently observes that marketing budgets track closely to revenue momentum. As such, IDC has seen that as 3rd Platform companies gain revenue, the marketing budgets for those vendors have also increased,” says Sam Melnick, research analyst at the IDC CMO Advisory Service.
“However, in the majority of legacy, 2nd Platform companies, marketing budgets have remained stagnant. 2nd Platform vendors must identify their high growth areas and aggressively invest budget to support them or risk being left behind.”
IDC finds that senior tech marketers, in general, continue to demonstrate a greater sense of optimism about their budgets than in earlier years. In 2013, IDC’s Tech Marketing Benchmark study showed that more companies increased marketing budget than lowered or maintained budgets. The 2014 Barometer study indicates that this trend will continue.