Renee Yeager - August 11, 2009

A few weeks ago, I posted Demand Generation Trends in the New Economy - Part 1 and shared some findings on a recent campaign we’ve been working on for a large technology company. You can read more about it here..

Since discovering these ‘new economy’ results, I’ve done some digging to get a better understanding of what’s happening in the market and how we can leverage current trends to benefit our clients. So, what’s the deal? Well, it boils down to two things: resources and money. No tremendous surprises; however there are still some interesting points that are interesting for marketers to know.
 
As part of our surveying, I wanted answers to the two major discrepancies to my tried and true marketing formula. First, why were we only reaching 10 to 15 percent of our database, when we typically talk with a minimum of 40 percent? Second, why had our conversion to lead ratio jumped from 5 to 7 percent to over 20 percent? Here’s what we learned…

Resources
In our conversations, the overwhelming majority of companies had suffered IT job loss.  In fact, many of the contacts we were able to get on the phone confirmed that they were doing their own job, as well as taking on the responsibilities of jobs that were cut.  A July 2009 study conducted by Computer Economics supports our findings. According to the study, 46 percent of North American IT shops are planning to cut positions this year, up from 24 percent last year, with one-quarter planning to slash staff by 10 percent or more.

Money
Regarding our higher conversion to lead ratio, I originally speculated that organizations with budgets were simply more willing to talk about IT projects. Given that having a budget in place is a requirement for our leads, that does seem to be true. In the Computer Economics study, they found that the majority of IT budgets are either flat (17 percent) or decreasing this year (38 percent). However, it is interesting to note that 45 percent of respondents reported their budgets will grow this year.  Could this be a ray of sunshine on an otherwise cloudy year?  It does make one wonder that if such a high percentage of companies are going to increase their IT budget, if possibly the worst is over. I guess only time will tell.  In the meanwhile—as organizations, hopefully, reassess their marketing budgets—we marketers should continue to demonstrate our value by carefully monitoring spend and making sure that all efforts directly support a measurable business objective.

You can read more about the study at http://tinyurl.com/m9zgsx