CHICAGO (PRWEB) - The Marketers Confidence Index remained stable in the second quarter of 2016, increasing two points from 121 to 123, despite a dampened jobs report, stock market turmoil and political upheaval. A reading of 100 in the Index represents neutral.
The Index, which was released today by the American Marketing Association (AMA) in partnership with Millward Brown Vermeer, measures the degree of optimism on the state of the economy that U.S. marketers are expressing through their organizational spending and growth.
The Index found 53 percent of U.S. marketers surveyed believe their businesses will grow in revenue in the next few years, and that 60 percent believe the marketing function will grow in influence and power within their organization. Others expressed concern that senior leadership does not really understand the value of digital technologies, and that there isn’t sufficient training for how marketers can convert big data and analytics into results or drive true digital transformation.
The latest findings identified technology and digital tools as primary drivers of organizational power and influence, highlighting virtual reality, social media, live marketing and the Internet of Things (IoT) as new opportunities to increase customer interaction and drive continued loyalty.
Spending also played a big role in the Index with over 60 percent of marketers feeling like this is the right time to invest; 40 percent feeling as if customer spending will increase; and nearly 30 percent planning on increasing the size of their marketing budget over the next six months.
“As marketing budgets increase, we expect most of the dollars to be allocated toward media placement, new product development, sponsorships, and market research and analytics,” said Russ Klein, CEO of the American Marketing Association. “While marketers display increased optimism on their industry and budgets, there is evidence they are not as confident about the ability to quantify the ROI of marketing initiatives.”
The Index found that only 22 percent of respondents have insight in the true ROI of all key marketing programs.
“Similarly to wave one, we have found that marketers continue to be confident in their influence in the board room,” said Marc de Swaan Arons, Millward Brown Vermeer’s chief marketing officer. “This surge of organizational power is mostly driven by the expansive growth of new digital tools, especially the consistency across digital platforms and cross-department collaboration. It is now up to us to use these tools and newly found influence to impact the bottom line.”
To learn more about the Marketers’ Confidence Index Survey or view specific results, visit http://bit.ly/29BzWKi, follow @ama_marketing and #marketingindex.
About the Survey
An online survey was conducted in May 2016. AMA newsletter subscribers and followers across a wide range of for-profit and nonprofit industries were invited to participate in the survey. The survey consisted of 13 questions in total and 1,028 marketers responded.
About Millward Brown Vermeer
Millward Brown Vermeer is a global consultancy focused on unleashing purpose-led growth through the development and embedding of consumer insight-led marketing strategy, structure and capability. To learn more about Millward Brown Vermeer, visit @kantarvermeer or http://www.mbvermeer.com.
About American Marketing Association (AMA)
The AMA is trusted by nearly 1.3 million marketing and sales professionals a year worldwide. It has more than 70 professional chapters and over 350 collegiate chapters throughout North America and select international locations. The American Marketing Association (AMA) is the largest marketing association in the world. AMA serves organizations and individuals who practice, teach and study marketing across the globe. It serves as a forum for connecting like-minded individuals to foster knowledge sharing and relationship building; to be a trusted resource for marketing information, tools, education and training; and to advance marketing practice and thought leadership. For more information about the AMA, visit http://www.ama.org or follow the latest AMA news at @AMA_Marketing.