More data on the shift in marketing

 
Josh Bernoff of Forrester blogged about some new data released by Forrester this week that provides more hard data about the shift in marketing taking place right now.  The data comes from its new forecast of spending in interactive marketing.  Here is a strong point Josh makes before summarizing  the data:

In this recession, marketers have learned that interactive marketing is more effective, and advertising less effective, per dollar spent. While budgets for online have decreased, they decreased less than other budgets. Six out of ten marketers we surveyed agreed with the statement "we will increase budget for interactive by shifting money away from traditional marketing." Only 7% said "we have no plans to increase our marketing budget."

Forrester measured five sub-categories of interactive marketing in its survey -- mobile marketing, social media, e-mail marketing, display advertising and search marketing.  The conclusion is interactive marketing spend will grow from 12% to 21% of all ad spend in five years. 

Not surprisingly, search marketing has the highest percentage of spending of all interactive marketing components, followed by display ads.  Social media, however, has the highest compound annual growth rate in spending of 34% -- from $716 million this year to over $3 billion in five years.

This is consistent with what we've seen and heard in our work with clients.  To be sure, most of them have taken a walk-before-run approach because they've wanted to see a return on the investment.  This has led to measured advances in what they have done (and what we've helped them do).  But, I've noticed a shift where the need to move faster down the path has become more urgent, in many cases fueled by signals from senior executives and from customers.  In terms of the latter, I have heard clients say that customers now want to engage with companies via social networks. 

I feel like a tipping point is here.  How about you?