Digital market in SEE with 10% rise in 2010

Webit Expo & Conferences 2010 was opened today by e-Academy chairman and honorary ambassador of Webit Plamen Russev and President and CEO IAB Europe and Chairman of the Honorary Webit Ambassadors Board Alain Heureux. 10% is the expected rise of investment in Internet advertising and marketing in 2010, said Plamen Russev at the opening. Although it is a slight increase, compared to the dropping amounts of traditional advertising the increase shows the potential of the market, that is about to grow.

The champion with the biggest rise is Serbia with more than 30% expected increase in 2010.

Advertisers in South-Eastern Europe give only 5% of their marketing budgets for digital communications, which is two times less than the budgets, given by companies in Central Europe and 5 times less than those in Great Britain, where digital advertising has the biggest share in the marketing mix with 25% of the total marketing and advertising budgets.

Marketing professionals should take more risks in order to discover the exceptional potential of Internet advertising and marketing. Alain Heureux adds that such a process comes along with educating the market in a right and planned manner.

Thus in 2011 e-Academy supported by Webit Ambassadors will provide educational programmes targeted at advertisers and marketing specialists. The programmes will include brand reputation management, planning and realization of overall digital strategy, planning and reporting the effectiveness of digital advertising, SEO, social marketing, etc.

Digital marketing is the marketing of 21 century

Over 40% of the population in the region is online, and in big cities the percentage is over 50%. For every company not being active online is the same as not existing on the market for not such a small group of consumers. For some products and services we can honestly say over 20% of their consumers could be reached mainly online. For each business, especially in times of crisis, losing 20% of clients could be a serious threat, Plamen Russev said.

Webit and e-Academy play quite an important role - to educate the market and help marketing professionals become orientated in the dynamic environment and receive the opportunity to be trained by top professionals in the field. This is a huge bonus for the local market. Having such a huge educational forum on the market gives competitive advantages and creates opportunities, says Alain Heureux.

Webit Expo & Conferences will be held from 27 till 29 October in The National Palace of Culture in Sofia. Among the lecturers this year are Blake Chandlee – VP Emerging Markets at Facebook, VP at BBC Worldwide Tom Bowman, VP of Google Admob Russell Buckley, presidents, vicepresidents and directors of the biggest worldwide and regional companies like Yahoo!, eBay, Yandex, Grey, Monster and over 70 other.

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Stela Licheva
Senior PR Executive
V+O Communication
s.licheva@vo-bg.com
+359 899 931 496