HR and Benefits Vendors Plan to Increase Their Marketing Budgets in 2011, Says Latest Survey from HRmarketer.com

CAPITOLA, Calif. / October 27, 2010 — Talent management, employee recognition, consulting, training, assessments and other HR industries may benefit from a sharp rise in supplier optimism during 2011, according to a new trends report from HRmarketer.com.

The popular marketing software and services firm has released its annual “Trends in HR Marketing” report that examines the spending habits of human resource and employee benefits vendors in 2010, as well as their budget priorities in 2011.

In the report, most vendors surveyed said they planned to increase or maintain their marketing budgets in 2011, a dramatic turnaround from last year when 30 percent of respondents said they would reduce their budgets. Marketing activities realizing the biggest increases will include direct e-mail marketing, online advertising, social media and SEO.

Topics covered in this year’s report include:
– Patterns of adoption and use of various marketing and PR tactics, including social networking, social media, blogging, podcasting and webcasts.
– Marketing and PR activities that generate the most sales leads for HR suppliers, and those that present the greatest challenges
– How HR suppliers measure the success of their marketing and PR campaigns
– How suppliers stay knowledgeable about the human resources marketplace

In other new findings, nearly 95 percent of HR vendors said their participation in social networking and social media marketing increased this year and will continue to increase in 2011. Interestingly, 69 percent of suppliers plan to measure their return on investment (ROI) for social media marketing—a seismic change from last year’s report, when 82 percent of companies didn’t measure ROI.

Also climbing in popularity is the self-publishing of original content such as white papers, eBooks and research reports, for use with direct e-mail campaigns.

To download the report, visit http://www.hrmarketer.com/content/?cat=4.

“As another year of sluggish recovery draws to a close, we’re heartened to discover a great deal of optimism from HR suppliers about 2011,” says Mark Willaman, founder and CEO of HRmarketer.com. “The challenge for vendors will be to transform the knowledge and insights revealed in our report into action.”

The research was collected from a diverse group of industry suppliers during fall 2010. Seventy-one percent of respondents included executive management across a variety of industries; annual revenues of surveyed companies ranged from $1 million to $50 million.

About HRmarketer.com
HRmarketer.com is a service of Fisher Vista LLC, the premiere marketing software and services firm in the human resources industry. Since 2000, the company has served nearly 1,000 HR and employee benefit suppliers, helping them generate publicity, Web site traffic, sales leads and improved SEO.

Media Contact
Elrond Lawrence
Fisher Vista, LLC
831.632.2183
elawrence(a)fishervista.com

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This press release was distributed through PR Web by Human Resources Marketer (HR Marketer: www.HRmarketer.com) on behalf of the company listed above.