Will UK Marketers Finally Close the Online-Offline Gap?
Integrating offline and online the top marketing priority this year
January 5, 2015
UK advertisers will spend £16.14 billion ($25.22 billion) on total paid media this year, and investments in digital ads will account for just under half of that—49.9%—at £8.06 billion ($12.59 billion), eMarketer estimates. But despite digital’s huge presence in the UK ad market, marketers still haven’t integrated online and offline efforts, according to November 2014 polling by Censuswide for Marin Software. However, they’re looking to change this in 2015.
Among the UK digital marketing managers surveyed, just less than one in three said their online marketing approach was completely integrated with all other areas. Meanwhile, the majority of respondents were taking steps to get there, with 54% saying their online marketing approach was somewhat integrated with offline marketing. Even better news: Just 13% of respondents hadn’t integrated online and offline at efforts all.
Responses indicated that UK digital marketing managers wanted to close the online-offline gap this year. Improving the integration of online and offline marketing efforts ranked as the No. 1 marketing priority for 2015, cited by 46% of respondents. The ability to track efforts across all channels allows marketers to follow their audiences as they bounce between the digital and physical worlds, and marketers were also focused on creating campaigns based on a better understanding of their audiences—something that will likely go hand in hand with how well they can integrate efforts.
The digital world is broken up, too, and besides merging online and offline marketing, UK marketers wanted to align their digital efforts; 37% of respondents said integrating digital marketing disciplines was a top priority—the third-highest response—and more than one-third planned to focus on cross-channel marketing.
Marketers have turned to technology to track consumers across channels, so it makes sense that working more closely with IT and tech rounded out the top five priorities. Indeed, this final area of focus could play a key part in accomplishing all of the priorities above it.