Results of my 2010 Social Media and CRM Deployment Survey

As many of you know I had my 2010 Social Media and CRM Planning Survey open until the end of the day yesterday. As promised, I wanted to share the results of the survey. Here is my summary:

•148 people responded to the survey. The sample set is small but provides another data point for you to consider.
•146 of these people answered the question: “In what areas are you planning to invest in Social Media in 2010?”:
◦80.1% of respondents are planning to use social media for marketing activities. While I feel that customer service is the right starting place, social media is often beginning in marketing/PR before being used by the rest of the organization.
◦50% of respondents planning are planning to use social media for customer service.
•147 of these people answered the question : “Will you be deploying a CRM System in 2010?”.:
◦52.4% of respondents either did not know what a CRM system was or were not planning on deploying a CRM system.
•The most common business focus for respondents was Strategic, Business Practices Consulting (16.4%), resellers and publishers were the 2nd most common (8.9%) and third most common was Government (8.2%).
Businesses selling Social Solutions that provide actionable information to marketing teams should find 2010 a big year. Watch out for the Social Media Monitoring market to really explode as it is well placed to meet this need. Also, in speaking with these companies, many are looking to grow their solutions from pure listening platforms to engagement platforms, increasing the value to marketing and customer support teams looking to engage with the right people at the right time.

I have chatted with many people in the public sector recently and I have been learning that there is a lack of awareness or appreciation for CRM solutions. The survey bore this out as 67% of those that self-classified as government are either not planning to roll-out a CRM or did not know what a CRM system is. This is worth paying attention to as companies that are able to sell valuable CRM solutions to Government agencies must be prepared to educate, educate, educate…. Those that are able to successfully make their case, however, should enjoy some strong sales.

If you would like the full results, in CSV format, leave a comment and I will gladly e-mail them to you.

What do you think?

John