Experts and checkbooks around the world agree, the global economy is entering recession conditions accompanied by stock market behavior unseen since the 1930’s. Businesses across industries are being forced to tighten spending for fear that sudden movements in this thin ice environment will create the crack that sends their company into icy and unforgiving waters.
Unfortunately, the traditional marketing and advertising sectors are bearing the brunt of the current economic conditions budget cuts. Emarketer reports that 59% of marketing executives initiated a decrease in spending on traditional marketing in 2008 and 65% decreased budgets for traditional advertising. Additionally, the Newspaper Advertising Association of America reports that total newspaper advertising revenues fell by $3-billion in the first six months of 2008, marking the lowest level in 12 years.
In stark comparison to the struggling traditional marketing sectors, online marketing firms have been steadily building market share for several years and are surprisingly unaffected by the current failing markets. Displaying a clear strength in a clearly chaotic business environment, both paid search and online advertising revenue have grown by 28% since 2007. Marketing Sherpa reports that 29% of medium to large businesses in Canada plan to increase their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) spending in the upcoming year…Read full article
November 19, 2008
