2015 Technology Marketing Priorities

| CreateYourNextCustomer.com Data: UBM Tech 2015 Tech Marketing Priorities Study, October 2014

20152015 Tech Marketing Priorities

Original UBM Tech Research

UBM Tech l Tech Marketing Best Practices Research Series l January 2015

UBM Tech 2015; All Rights Reserved. Pg. 1


2015 Tech Marketing PrioritiesWhere Tech Marketers Will Focus Their Strategy This Year

• In October 2014, UBM Tech conducted an online survey of technology marketing and advertising professionals to uncover their priorities this year.

• Final data is based on a total of 384 qualified respondents who work in marketing or advertising with a primary job function or responsibility of promoting technology products and/or services to businesses.

• The margin of error for the total respondent base (N=384) is +/- 5 percentage points.

Contents• Methodology• Strategies and Priorities• Event Marketing • Content Marketing• Digital Marketing• Executive Summary• Respondent Demographics



2015 Top Tech Marketing PrioritiesBlending Customer and Lead Acquisition with Brand Awareness

Q. What will be your top priorities in 2015? Check up to three options.

Customer and lead acquisition

Increasing and improving brand awareness

Driving increased conversion rates

Increasing customer engagement with content marketing

Using analytics for campaign strategy / development

Optimizing content marketing

Organizational alignment (i.e. increasing collaboration between business units)

Improving measurement and results of digital channels

Campaign attribution (i.e. identifying campaign’s role in sales)

Promotional testing and optimization (e.g. email, banner ads)

51%

48%

39%

39%

28%

27%

17%

10%

9%

7%

Best Bet Implement an integrated marketing strategy with both face-to-face and digital tactics to drive brand awareness and leads for sales.



Q. Which of the following tactics or offerings have been most successful for your organization? Check up to three.

Tech Marketers’ Most Successful TacticsLive Events and Content Marketing Continue to Top the List

Trade shows and events

Content creation and management

Email marketing

Design, development and maintenance of corporate websites

Digital or online marketing (banner ads, webinars, etc.)

61%

45%

39%

29%

29%

Content creation impacts all of the top marketing tactics. It’s impossible to be successful at an event, deliver an email marketing campaign with a high CTR, or engage new leads on your corporate website without relevant content that your prospects and customers need and want.

Best BetMake sure you have a strong content development plan in place. If you don’t have the resources, find third party help.

24%

22%

16%

8%

Search marketing (including paid search)

Social Media

Analytics

Video Production

Mobile Marketing 4%



Q. How do you expect your event marketing budget to change next year?

Event Marketing BudgetsMore Than One Third Expect to Increase Spending in 2015 on Events

Events are rated the most effective marketing tactic, but just over one-third (36%) of marketers expect their event marketing budget to increase next year.

Tech Marketers plan to exhibit at

7 industry events in 2015

36%

45%

14%

5%

Increase

No change

Decrease

Don’t know



Q. Which teams are involved in the creation and execution of your company’s trade show and event strategy? Check all that apply.

Event Marketing

Corporate Marketing

Product Marketing

Marketing Operations

Field Marketing

60%

56%

46%

43%

33%

Events Require Collaboration Across the Marketing Organization Product Marketing Teams Should Be More Involved in Strategy

Best BetThe event marketing team should no longer be solely responsible for driving an industry event strategy. Collaboration leads to stronger integrated marketing strategies, and a better chance for successful trade show investments.

Involvement of the product marketing team in your company’s event strategy will help ensure that your attendees understand your value proposition and drive higher engagement.



Event Marketing Success MetricsQuality Leads Most Important, Followed by Closed Sales

Q. When it comes to the success of events, how important is each of the following relative to the others? Please rank the following metrics in order of importance, where the top item (#1) is the most important contributing factor to the success of an event.

1 2 3 4 5Number of

qualified leadsNumber of

closed salesNumber of

attendees at booth

Press exposure before, during, and after show

Number of attendees at

show



Top Content Marketing Challenges

Producing content that engages

Inability to measure content effectiveness

Lack of time

Producing enough content

Lack of budget

Lack of integration across marketing

Producing a variety of content

Q. What challenges do you face in content marketing? Check all that apply.

58%

55%

50%

45%

37%

34%

30%

Best BetElevate the value of your content: which person within your organization is the appropriate peer representative for your content? Is it an IT director, CFO, or an analyst? Consider hiring an outside party to interview them and write a best practices or a case study piece.



Most Effective Tech Content FormatsQ. How would you rate the effectiveness of each of these content marketing formats?Percentages reflect high scores of “effective/very effective” on a 7-point scale

Best Bet – Don’t forget to syndicate your content to build awareness and recognition. Partnerships with third party websites are a vital component of an integrated marketing strategy – particularly when targeting prospects that may not be familiar with your products and services.

77%

69%

67%

63%

61%

55%

49%

47%

45%

37%

35%

33%

22%

Case studies

White papers

Videos

Webinars

Research reports

Articles on company website

Blogs

Infographics

eNewsletters

Slide shows

eBooks

Digital magazines

Podcast/Radio show



n

Content Marketing Requires More Resources Than Ever

Will Increase

Content creation and management 56%

Design, development, maintenance of corporate websites 45%

Social media 41%

Analytics 39%

Video production 37%

Digital or online marketing (banner ads, webinars, etc.) 36%

Search marketing (including paid search) 32%

Email marketing 31%

Trade shows and events 27%

Mobile marketing 26%

Q. Looking forward to 2015, how do you expect the amount of marketing personnel resources devoted to each of the following to change?

Content creation and management is the only area most respondents said will require more personnel resources (56%). Based off the content marketing challenges, tech marketers will use the additional resources to create higher quality content rather than produce as much content as possible.



Q. How many unique audiences does your organization target with separate content marketing strategies?

Unique Audiences Require Unique Content

/Best Bet The greater number of unique audiences, the more personnel resources will be needed to develop content that engages each one. Re-use, re-mix, re-purpose content for specific audiences to achieve optimal results.

44%

Two - Three

33%Four - Six

19%

Seven or more

4%One



Q. How do the following metrics stack up when it comes to the success of content marketing? Please rank these in order of importance where the top item (#1) is the most important.

The Metrics Marketers Use to Gauge Content Effectiveness

Similar to trade shows’ success metrics, the quality of leads are a more important marker of effectiveness than the quantity of leads. Remember, high quality content will result in high quality leads.

Sales lead quality

Web traffic

Direct sales

SEO ranking

Subscriber growth

Time spent on website

Social media sharing

Lead Quality Trumps All

1

2

3

4

5

6

7



Q. How do you expect your digital marketing budget to change next year?

0

Digital Marketing Budgets on the Rise

65%

24%

5%6%

Increase

No change

Nearly Two-Thirdswill have more money to spend on building brand awareness and engaging leads through

dynamic content


Decrease

Don’t know


Executive SummaryTop marketing priorities for 2015 are a blend of lead generation and story telling: Customer/lead acquisition and increasing & improving brand awareness.

The most successful tactics or offerings match with the top priorities: Trade shows and events (61%), and content creation (45%). No surprise, 79% of tech marketers plan to exhibit at 3 or more events.

Success metrics for events and content marketing reflect the top priority for marketers: leads, leads, and more leads.

Event Marketing success metrics: 1) number of qualified leads, 2) number of closed sales, and 3) number of attendees at booth.

Content Marketing success metrics: 1) sales lead quality, 2) web traffic and 3) direct sales.

Top Challenges: Producing content that engages (58%), the inability to measure content effectiveness (55%). 56% will devote more marketing personnel resources to content creation and management.

Budget Changes: Nearly two-thirds (65%) expect their digital marketing budget to increase in 2015. Just over one-third (36%) expect their event marketing budget to increase.

Most Effective content marketing formats: case studies (77% rated it as effective), white papers (69%), and videos (67%).

2015



Demographics

By Company Size

By Primary Company Technology

By Job Level

By Job Function

49%51%

7%

9%

22%

38%

8%

16%

29%

15%

10%8%

5%2%

31%

How many employees are in your company in total?

What is the PRIMARY technology or service your company offers or markets?

Fewer than 500 employees

500 or more employees

CMO

Vice President

Director

Manager/Supervisor

Consultant/Contractor

Other (please specify)

27%

22%16%

9%

6%4%

1%1%

14% Product Marketing

MarketingCommunications

Corporate Marketing

Marketing Operations

Field Marketing

Event Marketing

Public Relations

Media Buyer/Planner

Other

Software

Infrastructure

CloudMobile

Security

Big Data/Analytics

Other



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