Marketing members provided information on their budget, spend and allocations, and any adjustments made amid COVID-19.
A few of the key findings of this study:
- Manufacturers are seeing a decrease in this year’s marketing expenditures due to COVID-19 – 67% of respondents expect the decrease to be significant.
- Significant adjustments on pandemic budget forecasts – large budget increases are expected in sales support & training and digital marketing, while the largest budget decreases are forecasted for sponsorship & merchandising and trade shows.
- Digital marketing will continue to grow in importance – the impact of COVID-19 is driving an increase in budget allocation in this category from 15% to 19%.
- Expected growth in spending for virtual trainings – spending on virtual training for sales reps & external partners and the technology to support virtual communications is forecast to rise.
- Changes on product strategies – While budgets for product management and innovation are largely unchanged, fewer new products are being developed (58% seeing a decrease) while big picture innovation is increasing (42% expect an increase in spending).
