Business to Business Key Findings – May/June 2012
America’s Civility Problem
Almost two-thirds of Americans say that the country has a major problem: a lack of civility. Some 55% expect the problem to get worse over the next few years, up from 39% who thought so in 2010.
Americans say that politics (80%), pop culture (75%), the media (74%), the government (73%), the music industry (71%), and the general public sphere (70%) are the most uncivil environments.
Actions Americans Have Taken Because of Uncivil Behavior
LGBT Consumers React to Corporate Policies
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered adults are most influenced in purchasing decisions by companies’ employee policies than advertising content.
While including gay/lesbian characters or storylines in ads can be persuasive, it has less effect than how the company acts as an employer and corporate citizen.
Almost one-quarter of LGBT adults (23%) have switched brands during the past year because they discovered products made by a competitor company that supports LGBT causes. In addition, 71% say they would remain loyal to a gay-friendly brand even if they found the same item at lower prices or with more convenience.
Factors that Make LGBT Adults More Likely to Consider Buying a Brand
Source: HarrisInteractive.com
Prescription Medicine Spending
According to IMS Health, spending on prescription drugs rose only 0.5% between 2010 and 2011 to reach $320 billion. This is despite the fact that 2011 saw the highest number of new medicine introductions in the last 10 years.
One reason for the modest spending growth includes a higher use of generics: During 2011, generic spending grew by $5.6 billion, reaching 80% of dispensed prescriptions. However, the main reason was a drop in use of prescription drugs by seniors, who are typically the largest consumers of the products. Patients ages 65 and older cut their use of prescription drugs by 3.1%. Medicines for controlling blood pressure experienced the greatest drop.
The study showed this decline accompanied a decrease in physician office visits and non-emergency room hospital admissions, which is where those drugs are most often prescribed.
Drug spending did rise for young adults ages 19 to 25. This corresponded with an Affordable Care Act provision allowing them to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until they turn 26 years old.
Source: NPR.org
B2B Marketing Budgets Rise
According to a recent study by Forrester Research, business to business marketers will increase their marketing budgets by an average of 6.8% in 2012. Some 27.0% of marketers will boost their budgets between 10% and 19%; 20.0% will expand budgets between 5% and 9%; and 18.0% will increase them between 1% and 4%. Sixteen percent of business to business marketers will enhance budgets by more than 20%. The remaining 19.0% say they will decrease marketing budgets.
The industries with the highest marketing budget ratio (marketing budget as a percent of total revenue) are finance and insurance (3.0%), high-tech products (2.7%), pharmaceutical and medical (2.6%) and high-tech services (2.6%).
Source: BTOBonline.com
Technology Marketers Focus on Lead Generation
The top priority for technology marketers is improving lead generation, according to IDC’s 2012 Tech Marketing Barometer Study. (The study was based on an online survey of senior marketers at high-tech companies including industry leaders such as Cisco Systems, Dell, HP and Intel.)
The marketers’ other top priorities include building more brand awareness and improving marketing processes. Lead scoring was also explored in this survey, which is defined as the qualification of lead readiness using quantitative criteria.
Only 10% said they don’t score leads. One-third have begun scoring leads but don’t do this consistently. One-third score leads frequently based on prospect interactions such as opening email or viewing webcasts. Some 16% have been scoring leads consistently for more than 18 months and are able to link interactions to buyer intent, while only 8% have been scoring leads for many years based on customer knowledge and buyer readiness.
When it comes to nurturing leads, 10% of respondents said they don’t do this at all. About 22% said they have begun to “remarket” to leads, however all customers receive the same offers. Thirteen percent said they nurture leads regularly using multistep campaigns but send the same offers to everyone. One-third regularly nurtures leads using email and Web-based, multistep campaigns, and sometimes tailors content depending on the prospect. Some 22% regularly nurture leads via more than email and Web-based multistep campaigns, and the strategies are tied to stages of a buyer’s journey.
Source: BtoBonline.com
Social Media Rising as Traditional Media Falls
A new study by BtoB shows 32% of marketers as “very” or “fully” engaged in marketing through social channels, compared to 21% in 2011. This study also projects that in 2013, about 53% of marketers will be hugely engaged in social media marketing, with 97% of all marketers using social media to some degree.
Marketers say that LinkedIn (83%), Twitter (80%) and Facebook (79%) are their main channels, in addition to YouTube (60%) and blogging (50%). However, when asked to name their most important channels, blogging jumped to second (behind LinkedIn).
The study found that almost three-quarters of marketers are reallocating as much as 10% of their budget for traditional media to the social efforts. Some 56% say they will be moving marketing dollars from paid search to social.
On the other hand, a significant number of marketers just aren’t sold on social media marketing: 46% of marketers surveyed in 2011 considered the channel not worth pursuing, as do 35% in 2012.
Source: BTOBonline.com
Bullets
- Some 74% of men and 76% of women say they have used their mobile phones in a bathroom. Sixty-three percent have answered a phone call and 41% have initiated one. Twenty percent of males have engaged in work-related calls, versus 13% of females.
- Over one-half of workers (56%) say that participating in office politics is required to move up the corporate ladder.
- Some 16 million people in the U.S. will book travel on a mobile device in 2012, with that figure estimated to more than double to 36.7 million people by 2016.