How Are Internet Marketers Responding To The Recession?
By Anna Johnson on May 18th, 2009Research by MarketingProfs indicates that many Internet marketers are responding to the recession by shifting their focus to customer acquisition and retention activities, and away from activities concerned with lead generation, building brand awareness and taking customers from competitors.
Among the 670 online marketers surveyed, 29.9 percent of respondents said that acquiring new customers not currently in the category was their most important marketing objective right now. 26.6 percent said customer retention via upselling and encouraging repeat purchases was their most important objective.
Generating leads was the most important goal for 21.3 percent of the online marketers surveyed, while creating awareness for long-term branding and taking customers away from competitors were cited as the most important objectives by 15.4 percent and 7 percent of respondents respectively. (The percentages don’t strictly add up to 100 percent due to rounding).
Direct response Internet marketers may wonder why customer acquisition and retention would ever NOT be the most important objectives, but tough times often cause more companies to shift their focus from longer-term initiatives to those calculated to achieve more immediate or short term results.
Source: eMarketer, “Name of the Game: Acquire and Retain,” eMarketer, May 12, 2009
