Is 2010 the start of a truly digital decade for marketers? Yes, according to multi-channel marketing expert, Alterian, whose seventh annual global survey has found that 66 per cent of respondents will be investing in Social Media Marketing (SMM) in the next 12 months. 

Of those, 40 per cent plan to shift more than a fifth of their traditional direct marketing budget towards funding their SMM activities. This supports other statistics from the survey, which found that the majority of respondents (67 per cent) feel social media is either ‘increasingly important’ or ‘critical to success’.

Alterian CEO, David Eldridge, said: "Untargeted and irrelevant marketing techniques are now redundant and the results of this survey show that many in the industry recognise this. The one thing to remember, however, is that investment in Social Media Marketing is futile without adequate measurement." 

The survey discovered more than a third (36 per cent) of respondents are investing in social media monitoring and analysis tools – a significant percentage considering the maturity of the channel, reflecting the growing understanding that a social media marketing strategy needs to be based on listening to customers and prospects and its ROI needs to be measured. Eldridge added: "Without the adequate investment in listening and measurement tools it renders any anticipated investment in social media ineffectual. The key to an effective social media strategy is listening."

The survey explored the extent to which organisations integrate marketing technologies across their organisation. Forty-two per cent said they don’t incorporate clickstream and web analytics data into their customer and email database. "This is a worrying statistic as it shows many organisations are losing any advantage that this valuable actionable insight could give them," added Eldridge. 

The research also explored the importance of customer engagement and found more than half of respondents are placing a ‘fair’ or ‘significant’ amount of effort on moving from a campaign-centric direct marketing model towards multichannel customer engagement – in fact, only seven per cent are making no effort at all.

Eldridge concluded: "Engaging with customers is becoming paramount and the yardstick by which we measure those brands that survive and those that don’t. Marketers now need to appeal to the individual and engage with customers on a one-to-one basis. The easiest way to achieve this is by investing in Social Media Marketing and Social Media Monitoring, and by embracing the web."

The Alterian survey will be launched at a webinar today (January 21) at 4pm (GMT). Details here: http://www.alterian.com/news__events/events/january_2010_webinar.aspx

To obtain a copy of the survey, visit: http://www.alterian.com/resources/research.aspx