According to the late 2003 survey of 359 tech vendors conducted by InsightExpress, the increases to online advertising and online lead generation were slight, but encouraging. Respondents indicated that 14% of their budgets were allocated for online advertising, and 26% for online sales lead generation. These figures each represent a 1% increase over 2002, but are 2% behind the projections for 2004.
More than half (54%) of the respondents indicated that they would increase their marketing budgets in 2004, while 31% expected their allocations to remain flat. Only 7% revealed that a decrease would be imminent. Nearly one-quarter (24%) projected that they would allocate over $500,000 for their marketing activities and sales lead generation in 2004, while the majority (39%) planned on spending $50,000 to $100,000. Webcasts and online newsletter advertising were the sales lead generation methods that were expected to show the most growth in 2004 over the previous year. While more than half (55%) of the survey participants indicated that they used Webcasts in 2003, nearly three-quarters (73%) were expected to use the medium in 2004.