â–¶ Rising Corporate Confidence a Boon for Communications Departments: According to a report from the New York chapter of IABC and Trident Communications, corporate confidence is on the rise, and communications/marketing programs are benefiting accordingly. Among the findings:
• 62% of surveyed executives are unveiling new marketing programs, and 54% new employee communications programs, in the near future;
• 52% believe corporate communications would improve over the next 12 months;
• Only 23% expect further layoffs in their departments, while 11% expect increased hiring; and,
• 72% said social media tools would become regular communications channels in their companies in the coming year.
Source: NY/IABC and Trident Communciations
â–¶ Social Media Measurement Lagging Behind Adoption: The rate of social media adoption among business executives continues to climb, with 86% of respondents to a Mzinga and Babson Executive Education survey saying they now use digital communications platforms for business purposes.
Despite widespread adoption, the employment of measurement lags, with only 16% of respondents saying they measure the ROI of their social media initiatives. What’s more, more than 40% admitted to not knowing whether or not the social media tools they use have measurement capabilities.
The report also cited research that polled executives on their methods of social media deployment. Among those findings:
• 61% integrate social media into their Web sites;
• 40% use it as stand-alone community sites; and,
• 39% use social widgets from third-party sites such as Facebook.
As for the business areas in which executives use social media:
• Marketing: 57%
• Internal collaboration and learning: 39%
• Customer service and support: 29%
• Sales: 25%
• HR: 21%
• Strategy: 16%
• Product development: 14%
Source: Mzinga and Babson Executive Education
â–¶ Formal Agency Evaluation Promotes Higher-Quality Performance: According to a survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers, 82% of marketers report that their companies regularly conduct formal agency performance evaluations, with the top benefits of doing so cited as identifying and improving under-performing agency relationships (92%) and identifying and recognizing high-performing agency relationships (85%).
Specific qualitative performance criteria include:
• Innovation (85%)
• Strategy (82%)
• Implementation/follow through (82%)
• Fiscal stewardship (81%)
• Ideas (77%)
• Teamwork (77%)
• Meeting project objectives (77%)
Additional findings:
• 59% of firms conduct two-way, or 360 degree, evaluations in which the agency also evaluates the client;
• 58% of marketers rate agency performance evaluations as “extremely” or “very effective” in maintaining the client-agency relationship and 38% rate their agencies “somewhat effective”; and,
• 76% of marketers report that their firms have a formal evaluative process in place for their traditional creative ad agencies.
Source: ANA
â–¶ Citizenship Critical, Recession or Not: The 2009 State of Corporate Citizenship survey results reveal that, despite the recession, corporate citizenship practices are ingrained in increasing numbers of American businesses. The report, released by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and The Hitachi Foundation, revealed that:
• Reputation was cited by 70% of surveyed execs as a driver for corporate citizenship, tied for the top spot with “it fits our company traditions/values”;
• 11% are increasing corporate citizenship marketing and communications; and,
• Only 34% said greater regulatory oversight by the federal government is an important part of solving the current economic crisis and creating a more stable economy.
Source: Hitachi Foundation and BCCCC