Lisa 
Forrester Research has released its five year forecast which estimates that U.S. interactive marketing spending will increase to approximately $55 billion by the year 2014. Their prediction is that as overall advertising budgets continue to decline, dollars will be allocated towards research, innovation, customer service, customer experiences, marketing-specific technology and IT staff. Companies who have not yet entered the game and attempted to keep pace with the rapidly changing interactive environments, may be in for an awakening.
Forrester’s model shows that the largest increase in dollars will be earmarked for search marketing, however, social media spending will increase at a compound growth rate of 34%, the highest percentage gain in the forecast. This is closely followed by mobile marketing with an anticipated compound growth rate of 27% over the next five years.
I am not surprised by the predicted growth in the areas of social media and mobile marketing. The first thing I did when I purchased my iphone was download the various social media applications. I no longer need to be sitting in front of a desktop computer to interact on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or Skype. I can update my blog and receive a constant push of my email, which allows me to respond more quickly to inquiries and comments. I find this to be a convenient, productive use of small blocks of time during the day. It certainly will be very interesting to follow these trends over the next five years.
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