Troy, NY - (Business Wire) - 11/20/2008 - Companies within the industrial sector spent a greater portion of their marketing budget online in 2008, according to the report, "Trends in Industrial Marketing 2008: How Manufacturing Companies are Marketing Today." This third annual survey of marketing and sales professionals in the industrial and manufacturing sectors was conducted by GlobalSpec (www.globalspec.com), the leading specialized search engine, information services and e-publishing company for the manufacturing, technical, industrial and engineering communities.

Thirty percent of respondents reported spending more than 50 percent of their overall marketing budget online in 2008, up from 20 percent of respondents in 2007. On average, 37 percent of the marketing budget is spent online.

Despite the increased shift of marketing dollars to online media, respondents still faced a number of challenges in their marketing efforts. Forty-seven percent of respondents selected "too few marketing resources" as one of their top three marketing challenges this year. Another 31 percent indicated that improving marketing ROI was a challenge for them. And while industrial suppliers are allocating more of their marketing budget online, they don't always know where to invest: 26 percent of respondents report that determining what online marketing programs work best remains a challenge.

The survey results also show that generating leads remains a top marketing goal - and challenge - for industrial marketers. Seventy-two percent of respondents indicated that either customer acquisition or lead generation was their primary marketing goal in 2008. In addition, quality of leads delivered was considered the most important factor when deciding where to allocate marketing budget, with lead quantity being less important.

Results including full color charts and graphs of the 2008 GlobalSpec Industrial Marketing Trends Survey can be found at: http://www.globalspec.com/wp/Trends_in_Industrial_Marketing_2008.

About GlobalSpec, Inc.
GlobalSpec, Inc. is the leading specialized vertical search, information services and e-publishing company serving the engineering, technical and industrial communities. GlobalSpec users benefit from domain-expert search engines, a broad range of proprietary and aggregated Web-based content, including GlobalSpec's PartFinderSM product, and more than 60 e-newsletters - helping them search for and locate products and services, learn about suppliers and access comprehensive technical content. SpecSearch®, GlobalSpec's trademarked search technology, allows users to search by specification more than 180 million parts in 2,300,000 product families from more than 24,000 supplier catalogs. For suppliers, GlobalSpec offers highly filtered sales and marketing opportunities, product promotion and brand advertising platforms, including the GlobalSpec Industrial Ad Network, and a wide range of e-media advertising and marketing solutions.

GlobalSpec, SpecSearch, The Engineering Search Engine and The Engineering Web are registered trademarks of GlobalSpec, Inc.

Contact:
GlobalSpec Marketing
E-mail: marketing@globalspec.com

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