Australian Marketing Trends for 2013

A recent study on the state of digital marketing was conducted by ‘The APAC Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard 2012‘ and was released by the CMO Council in partnership with Adobe in late 2012.  The report clearly shows a trend toward digital marketing for all businesses regardless if they are selling online or offline and even if they previously only practiced traditional marketing methods, with Australia trailblazing the way into the interactive marketing world. The study revealed that “Australian marketers are more advanced digital marketers than their Asia Pacific counterparts, exhibiting higher levels of spend and a more extensive use of digital techniques; 41% of Australian marketers invest 25% or more of their total marketing budgets on digital. This was well ahead of any other APAC nation.”

Key local findings included that:

• Companies are devoting most of their digital marketing budget to website content development and performance optimisation,
• 67% of Australian marketers surveyed said that customer preference is the reason for investing in digital marketing,
• 50% of Australian marketers said that social media optimisation is a priority this financial year, including boosting community growth and engagement,
• 84.5% of Australian marketers surveyed are using digital marketing analytics and reporting, and the 4 key metrics being used by are: website performance data including traffic and traffic sources (76.5%), click-through rates (74%), response rates (72%), and conversion rates (64%), and
• APAC will be home to some 2.15 billion mobile phone users this year – nearly 55% of the global total – and will represent nearly 60% of all mobile phone users by 2016.

Takeaways for Australian Businesses:

Keep in mind that marketing trends affect all businesses; and, as the findings of this report show, the growing trend towards mobile and digital experiences means that business will need to adapt and adopt new technologies to stay ahead of the curve.

Even if your business is off line and only engages in traditional marketing, these trends should tell you that it is time to being to incorporate some digital marketing techniques, like social media, for example, into your overall marketing strategy.