Can Your Marketing Budget Support New Channel Development?

This IDC Insight presents an analysis of how marketing investment must increase to engage indirect sales channels for technology firms. The modeled shift in MBR, or marketing investment as a percentage of revenue, versus the percentage of indirect sales revenue is provided for hardware and software companies, as well as key shifts in marketing mix for each sector.

The data presented in this study is from IDC's CMO Advisory 2004 Technology Marketing Benchmarks Survey. Field research for IDC's CMO Advisory 2004 Technology Marketing Benchmarks Survey was conducted from April through July 2004. The survey included interviews with more than 150 senior marketing executives from more than 100 of the world's leading hardware, software, IT services, and telecommunications vendors. The interviews were conducted over the telephone or in person and were guided by a 32-question survey instrument. Interviews lasted approximately 60?90 minutes, and either one interview or two interviews were required to complete a thorough response from each business or business unit. In their survey response, most respondents spent significant time in their internal data collection efforts before engaging in the direct interview(s) with the IDC project team.

To ensure comparability of responses, each respondent was supplied with a detailed glossary providing an explanation of terms in the survey. To further ensure comparability, all questions related to the distribution of marketing spending or staffing were designed on the basis of marketing activities, not by functional area names. This approach encouraged consistency in the classification of responses. Additional background on methodology is provided in Marketing Budget Planner 2005: Benchmarks and Key Performance Indicators (IDC #31755, August 2004).