A recent survey by Next Digital has confirmed many of the digital trends felt by Australian marketers.

The survey shows that digital media is seen as a
significant opportunity for marketing strategists, says Dr Michael
Valos, chair of the Monash University Marketing Alumni Association. Dr Valos commissioned the 2008 Australian Digital Marketing Trends Survey in conjunction with Next Digital.

The number of organisations spending between 25 and 50 percent of
their marketing budget on digital media will increase by more than 40
percent over the next five years.

While just 10 percent of organisations currently allocate comparable
funds to digital marketing, the figure will rise to 51 percent in
2013. 

The survey also found the percentage of organisations that will
spend more than 50 percent of their marketing budget on digital media
rising from 4 percent in 2007, to 19 percent in 2013, a substantial
increase says Dr Valos.

While some are already experimenting with it, I think
we will see over time that organisations will start to replace
traditional media for digital alternatives.

The survey also found that social marketing and networking opportunities, such as Facebook, were vastly under-utilised.

There really needs to be a widespread shift of
marketing understanding as we enter the digital media age, says Arthur
Spanos, Next Digital managing director.

In many circumstances, its a case of organisations not
understanding digital media applications and how they can benefit their
brand and engage their consumers.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Search Engine
Marketing (SEM) are other areas where organisations could significantly
improve reach and exposure to their target audiences and drive
substantially more traffic to their website, says Mr Spanos.

The survey showed that while the majority of respondents utilising
SEO and SEM found it to be very or extremely effective, over 20 percent
of respondents did not use it at all.

Theres no doubt that digital media is a growing
market, says Dr Valos. However right now the riskiest approach for
organisations would be to ignore it.

Over 200 senior marketers from a diverse range of industries
responded to the Australian Digital Marketing Trends Survey since it
was launched online in May 2008. 

There was a large Government representation with the majority of
respondents coming from Government or Government Agency environments. A
total of 50 percent of companies had between 100-499 employees, with
significant annual turnovers recorded in 2007.

Next Digital is Australias largest full service digital marketing
company, with offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Shanghai and
Bangkok. The company intends to host the survey on an annual basis.