Last week, Gartner predicted that marketing spending by high tech and telecom providers will increase this year. Despite this good news, the company says that “the economy may never return to their prerecession ways” and that the industry will have to rethink their spending approach. The company calls it "the new normal”.

First some data. Gartner found that 41% of the marketing budgets of the high tech and telecom providers industry will increase this year. 44% will be flat in comparison to last year.

These results are a clear improvement in comparison to last year when more than half of respondents took cuts in their budgets.

According to Gartner’s research vice president, Laura McLellan, business will continue to look at costs and ROI of their marketing investments.

Customer segmentation ranks high in key marketing priorities

This may have several consequences, including adopting lower-cost marketing alternatives, partial outsourcing of activities that were previously done in-house and of course focusing on marketing strategies and approaches with a clear and proven short-term and long-term impact on the bottom-line.

Obviously, these consequences will vary by company and by industry (software, telecom, hardware, IT services, etc.).

However, Gartner says "for all, it means revisiting how they plan to support the growth of their companies through traditional and new channels, while keeping the core brands strong.”

For the companies that will increase their marketing budgets, Gartner found, "sales programs to support the direct sales force as well as programs supporting positioning and external communications are key priorities”.

Next follow customer segmentation, strategic marketing, management of marketing efforts and sales programs to support indirect sales.