Digital priorities, DTC, news brands: 5 killer stats to start your week

UK journalism outreaches Facebook and Google

The UK news brand sector reaches 47.9 million people a month in the year to the end of September – more than Facebook’s audience of 43 million and Google’s of 42 million.

Across new brands and magazines, that total is 49.4 million.

Phone is now the largest platform, with monthly reach of 36.5 million, ahead of print on 33.4 million, desktop on 18 million and tablet on 11 million.

On a daily basis, UK new brands reached 19 million people via digital, up 24% year on year. Including print, news brands’ daily audience stands at 26 million, up 8%. That is ahead of the growth rate of Facebook, up 3%, and Google, which declined 7%.

Source: PAMCo

More than half of marketers feel ‘disenfranchised’ with work

Marketers are split over whether their business invests in skills and training, with 47% saying they feel ’empowered’ – that their organisations invests and has a culture that encourages development. However, 53% are ‘disenfranchised’ – believing that their organisation doesn’t invest or have a culture of development.

At companies where marketers feel empowered, 52% have their development reviewed regularly compared to just 16% at businesses where marketers feel disenfranchised.

Some 58% of empowered marketers say their companies encourage them to take part in continuous professional development programmes, compared to just 16% of disenfranchised staff.

Source: Data and Marketing Association

A fifth of shoppers bought Christmas gifts during Black Friday

More than one in five (22%) shoppers say they bought Christmas gifts during Black Friday. In total, £2.1bn was spent on Christmas gifts, around 16% of total Christmas spending.

On average, people who bought Christmas gifts spent £179, almost 40% of the average household Christmas budget.

However, fewer people bought Christmas gifts during Black Friday than had planned. Some 28% of those surveyed before Black Friday said they would use it to buy gifts, compared to 22% who actually did.

And three in five said they spent less than they had originally planned, with 22% spending more.

Source: Retail Economics and Klarna

Marketers believe DTC brands are impacting how they market

Some 80% of marketers at consumer brands agree that direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands are impacting how they market or think about marketing.

This impact comes mostly in the digital space, where 43% say their DTC counterparts excel at digital media buying, 41% at social and 31% at delivering curated experiences.

However, marketers at more traditional brands believe DTC will struggle with copycat competitors – cited by 58% – customer retention (34%), product variance (32%), consumer privacy regulations (30%), audience diversification (27%) and scaling growth (23%).

Source: CMO Club

Marketers’ top digital priorities in 2020

Social media engagement and analytics (32%), targeting and personalisation (28%) and customer journey management (27%) are the top three digital priorities for marketers in 2020.

Delivering personalised messages in real-time (38%) is the emerging digital tactic most marketers have incorporated into their business, followed by using AI to drive campaigns (29%) and enhanced payment technologies such as mobile wallets and e-receipts (24%).

Just 9% have incorporated blockchain-based functionality, 14% voice interfaces and 18% virtual or augmented reality.

Source: Econsultancy and Adobe