ROI tops marketers’ digital challenges in China: Forrester
As online penetration approaches 50 per cent (670 million internet users) in China, the world’s most populous market, digital is on the top of marketing leaders’ agenda. A recent Forrester Research survey indicates that 63 per cent of marketers consider achieving a positive ROI as their top digital marketing challenge.
“As marketers become increasingly responsible for revenue generation, they care even more about the effectiveness of their digital marketing spending. Digital agencies can play a more important role by providing counsel on strategy and measurement that will help marketers achieve business outcomes,” advises Forrester’s Senior Analyst Xiaofeng Wang in the research.
Marketing leaders in China expressed a need for more support from their digital agency in areas such as a customer experience strategy, measurement and analytics. 40 per cent of the marketers surveyed indicate that they were handling at least eight different digital marketing duties, including social and mobile marketing, customer relationship management (CRM) and eCommerce. Social marketing, digital strategy, and content are the three initiatives that marketers consider their top priorities in 2015.
Seventy-eight percent of marketers surveyed indicate an increase in their digital marketing budget in 2015 vs. 2014 and Forrester forecasts that online advertising spending in China will double again to reach USD 38.1 billion by 2017, despite the rapid increase over the past two years.
