Marketers focusing on customer acquisition in 2009

Online marketers are set to focus more on acquiring new customers this year, according to a new study.

Datran Media's survey suggested that almost two-thirds of internet marketers view customer acquisition as their most important goal in 2009.

Other priorities cited by respondents included increasing brand awareness and favourability and enhancing customer retention.

Email was viewed as the best marketing platform for the majority of firms, with search engine marketing and display ads also being seen as particularly strong.

When it came to investment priorities, nearly 60 per cent said they would increase spending on email marketing this year, while 54.4 per cent stated that they would do so for search marketing and 43.9 per cent said the same for social media.

A recent MarketingSherpa study indicated that business-to-consumer marketers view email, search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising as the platforms offering the highest returns on investment for their organisations.