Web: One Tenth of Trillion Dollar Marketing Spend

Web development, combined with public relations, will capture $100 billion of the one trillion dollars earmarked for marketing expenditures in 2005, according to research firm Blackfriars Communications. The company’s new report evaluates marketing budgets by industry

The retail sector alone is set to spend $11.5 billion developing better sites to reach consumers. Marketing expenditures across all industries this year are expected to exceed one trillion dollars, about 8.9 percent of the US gross domestic product,

Comparing dollars spent on marketing to the gross domestic product establishes perspective. Carl Howe, a principal at Blackfriars, said the trillion dollar marketing figure represents about 8.9 percent of the US gross domestic product (GDP), and falls just shy of the of Canada’s GDP.

Manufacturing is expected to spend $11 billion on Web marketing; and the financial sector will spend nearly $8 million this year, according to the report.

Overall, manufacturing and retail represent the two largest marketing verticals, accounting for nearly a fifth of marketing spending across all sectors. While manufacturing participates in a diverse number of marketing activities, retail is most active in direct marketing and Web site development as a channel to reach consumers.

Projected Marketing Budgets for the Top Six Industries, 2005
	Percentage of Revenue	Marketing Spend ($ billions)	GDP Contributions ($ billions)
Finance and insurance	6.8	68.2	1,003
Information (including media)	10.5	59.2	564
Manufacturing	7.8	120.1	1,540
Other services	10.4	29.8	284
Professional, scientific, and technical services	7.2	58.8	817
Retail trade	11.5	94.6	822
All businesses	8.9	1,073.5	12,099
Notes: 1) Values may not add precisely to totals due to rounding. 2) 2004 GDP figures were increased by 3.1% by BEA. 3) The percentage of revenue for all businsess was adjusted from 9.1% by Blakcfriars because of new GDP data and added detail in the underlying model.
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis and Blackfriars Communications, Inc., 2005

Advertising across all channels grabs a larger piece of the pie in the overall marketing picture. The manufacturing sector will spend 36.7 million on advertising this year.

“We are much more of a nation of marketers than I think anybody guessed,” Howe said. His company polled 300 senior business executives for the report.

Blackfriars sees ad spend tapering off in favor of more measurable activities such as direct marketing, Web development, and other non-traditional activities. The firm advises marketers to adopt new methods of reaching consumers early.