WebProNews

Over half of B-to-B marketers (60%) plan to increase their marketing budgets next year, according to BtoB's "2008 Marketing Priorities and Plans" survey.

 The largest budget increase will be in online marketing, with 79 percent of marketers planning to increase their online budgets next year, up from last year's survey that found 75 percent of marketers planned to put more dollars toward their online budgets in 2007.

The online areas that will receive increases next year are Web site development (cited by 74.0% of marketers); e-mail (70.1%); search engine marketing (64.3%); video (39.5%); webcasting (39.1%); banners (36.4%); sponsorships (29.6%); and social media (26.2%).

Along with online budgets receiving a boost, event marketing will also get an increase. Forty-nine percent of marketers are planning a budget increase in this area compared with 44 percent last year.

In 2008 direct mail marketing is expected to continue to grow with 40 percent of respondents planning to increase their direct budgets next year, down from 50 percent last year. Increases in print budgets will also be down. Twenty-seven percent of marketers expect to increase their print spending compared with 33 percent last year.

The survey also revealed that 69 percent of marketers will launch new ad campaigns in 2008 and 36 percent will hire additional staff.