US corporations are expected to increase their spend on digital marketing from 2.5% of revenue to 9% in 2013, overtaking IT spend as a percentage of revenue for the first time. Not surprisingly, social media is where most marketers want to increase spending, but mobile applications are not far behind. Tablet applications also figure on the list. Brand building and differentiation are the top reasons for digital marketing, followed by customer  communication and assessment of customer satisfaction of a product, according to a survey of 250 firms with over $500-million in annual revenue by Gartner

Percentage of firms planning to increase spends in:

Social media—————————61% Mobile applications——————58% CRM————————————-54% Customer analytics——————-51% Tablet applications——————-48% Content management—————-47% Collaboration tools——————-45% Predictive analytics——————43% Campaign management————–42% Search engine optimisation———42% E-mail marketing———————40% Single view of customer————-36% Score cards or dashboards———-33% Reputation management————-32% 

Top Reasons for Digital Marketing

Brand building and differentiation Consumer communication Understanding consumer satisfaction with product Shop-ability or improving the ability of the shopper to find and select your product Gathering product or service innovation insights B2C sales relationships (brand to consumer) Services associated with your product to drive differentiation   SOURCE: The Economic  Times  22-Mar-2013