The pandemic has uprooted many norms in the way of business operations. However, as steps advance to provide vaccine distribution to more Americans, hope is on the way. Within business ventures, it seems that global marketing leaders also are projecting an optimistic outlook for growth recovery in 2021.

As part of its “Getting it Done in 2021,” the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council surveyed approximately 200 CMO Council members across all regions worldwide. Through that survey, the organization found that 65 percent indicated plans to increase marketing spend in 2021. Twenty-four percent noted no expected change while only 10 percent plan to reduce their budgets.

Another key stat the survey found was that nearly 70 percent of companies plan to invest more in marketing technology.

“They plan on focusing their MarTech investments on filling gaps in their customer journey, improving their digital engagement and better targeting their audiences with relevant campaigns,” the report states.

Data also shows that marketers plan to allocate resources to automation solutions:

• 37 percent name campaign executive and go-to-market strategies
• 53 percent cite customer analytics and insights
• 35 percent highlight marketing operations and measurement

“The most relevant and compelling areas of conversation among our members right now are all about ROI, efficiency and revenue optimization,” said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, in a statement. “This means being more focused on digital marketing transformation, creating value from customer data, and upgrading customer engagement and experience.”

The CMO recognizes that consumers’ ability to engage with brands has changed. For instance, a 2019 survey found that 10 percent of consumers prefer a digital-only interaction with brands. However, the 2020 questionnaire saw the digital-only preference increase to 21 percent.

With consumers’ engagement preferences evolving coupled with an increase in marketing spend for 2021, it looks as though we can look forward to some exciting campaigns in 2021.