We look with optimism at the 2021 Marketing Plans

Looking ahead to the first half of 2021, the perception of investments in marketing will rise again, according to research carried out by the Spanish Marketing Association. The marketing directors consulted are more optimistic or hopeful about the evolution of own sales (+2.5), the market situation and advertising investment, although these last two parameters still remain in negative values ( -0.1 and -0.3, respectively).

Javier Gómez, product director of Gfk, was responsible for presenting the results of a study where the data are very marked by the vaccine against COVID-19. In general, there are more optimistic (44%) than pessimistic (29%) marketing directors right now, although they place it in 2022 (29%) or 2023 or more (18%), as the time of a widespread sectoral recovery. In addition, 52% of respondents say that this semester we close in December has been better than expected, compared to 34% who say it has been worse than expected.

At edeon we have experienced a favorable evolution of communication and marketing services. Traditional services such as offline action execution have stalled but digital actions have increased. "Since the beginning of the pandemic we have seen how some customers have had to change their plans and have stopped investing in marketing actions, others, however, have increased the pressure on the market by entrusting us with communication and digital marketing tasks. , and this fact has allowed us to close the year in a positive way ", assures Lluís Feliu, director of communication and marketing of the agency.

So, from the edeon agency we have been able to close the year with new clients in the portfolio, all of them demanding community manager services, digital advertising and Digital PR. Overall, and in terms of marketing budgets, 43% of those surveyed in the study say they will decrease, compared to 28% who think they will grow. Overall, the report concludes that the evolution will be -1.40%. Advertisers will contain their investment in advertising and staff. Other areas most likely to receive higher budget disbursement are market research and consulting, brand investment and customer relations, and discounts.

The studio also offers good news when it comes to digital advertising . Online media is increasingly capturing a larger portion of the advertising pie compared to traditional media, in a scenario in which 48% of companies invest more than 40% in digital advertising. He also points out that the outbreak of the pandemic and the general confinement decreed resulted in a forced digitalization that has benefited the digital marketing sector, especially areas such as e-commerce: more than half of the companies sell more than 5 % of its products online, which represents a growth of e-commerce of 10 points in just one semester. Likewise, the level of satisfaction with e-commerce sales is growing, which is satisfactory for 40% of directors, and some experts point to a five-year acceleration in digitization of companies and marketing departments in just a few months.

The different sectors

Although the crisis has been cross-cutting across the market, the report shows sectoral differences, especially in terms of future prospects. While Banking, Energy, Automotive and Tourism have negative expectations for 2021, Consumer Affairs, Fashion and Education are the most optimistic sectors alongside others under the digital umbrella, as is the case of the Technology.

From the agency we will follow very attentive to the evolution of the different sectors to be able to detect opportunities of business, generate synergies between customers and boost like this the economy of the business fabric of our zone.

Source: Spanish Marketing Association