Marketers plan biggest 2012 budget increases for email marketing

Most marketing executives, 92% to be exact, plan to increase or maintain current levels of marketing spend next year.

Out of the 939 executives surveyed 60% said they expect to raise their email marketing budgets in 2012, the top channel for increased spend. The top email marketing initiative for 2012 for 48% will be increasing subscriber engagement followed by improving segmentation and targeting (44%) and growing opt-in email lists (32%).

Email's measurability and accountability put it ahead of social, mobile and search, found StrongMail. Social budgets are to be increased by 54% of executives and 37% plan to increase mobile and search spend.

Recent research from Epsilon Targeting revealed consumers prefer to receive marketing messages from brands via direct mail rather than email. Despite this, 28% of respondents to StrongMail's survey said they will decrease spending on direct mail.

Tradeshow and event spending is also to be shrunk as cited by 23% of respondents.

While email marketing leads the pack in terms of increased investment in 2012, the data also reveals that marketers need to overcome key challenges around data integration and resource constraints," said Christopher Marriott, vice president of agency services at StrongMail.

Tags: email marketing, event marketing, marketing budget, mobile marketing, research, social marketing, Strongmail, tradeshow