More than 800 senior marketers across all global regions responded to the annual 2008 Marketing Outlook Survey undertaken by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, and sponsored by Deloitte Consulting LLP and Marketo. The survey looked at a wide range of planned investments, organizational changes, process improvements and performance indicators. Results revealed that marketing spend levels are expected to remain relatively steady in 2008, and progress has been made toward increasing the perceived value of the marketing function, but there is still much more work to be done to improve the ability to quantify and measure the value of marketing investments.

Key findings include:

• Approximately 70 percent of respondents reported that 2008 budgets will be flat or grow between 0-5 percent.
• Quantifying and measuring the value of marketing programs and investments remains the top challenge in the year ahead for more than 50 percent of survey respondents and nearly 34 percent said they were planning to introduce a formal Marketing return on investment tracking system.
• Other key priorities include growing customer knowledge, insight and conversations, and upgrading the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing groups.
• Marketers reported significant agency turnover in 2007 with advertising (41 percent), web design (38 percent) and public relations (26 percent) firms most frequently changed in 2007.

According to Dave Couture, principal and sales & marketing specialist, Deloitte Consulting LLP, survey results show "there's no doubt marketers are seeing the need to implement performance measurement and to re-tool their organizations to further yield and accountability." He further adds, "Clearly investments are being earmarked to better integrate and align marketing with sales and to leverage customer insight and intelligence to improve acquisition, conversations and relationships."

To learn more about the report and view other key findings, please access the Marketing Outlook 2008 executive summary. The full report, which includes detailed findings of all survey questions, is available through the CMO Council.

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