Marketers are More Optimistic Than Ever About Economic Growth

By: Shrey Devulapalli

365 days ago, if you asked any person, marketer or not, if they think the economy is returning to pre-pandemic levels, you wouldn’t be very likely to hear too much optimism. Interest rates dropped to new lows, the major market indexes were taking a dive, unemployment was at its highest level since the Great Depression… shall I go on. 

Unsurprisingly, this sentiment bode true among marketers from all economic sectors, which we look at in our latest edition of Benzinga Reports. In fact, according to a CMO survey, economic optimism among marketers saw its lowest levels since February 2009 - during the last economic crisis - when optimism was at a 47.7 level (out of 100). Nevertheless, last June didn’t show much of a difference as economic optimism was at a 50.9 level, which represents only a 3.2% increase from 2009. This only helps to illustrate the bigger picture of how terrible the pandemic was in terms of the economy and how the American people, especially those in the business field, feel towards it.

Enough dwelling on the past. On the bright side, today, vaccine rollout is expanding, businesses are opening their doors, unemployment has sunk to yearly lows, and the Fed has promised to taper bond buying and increase rates in the near, near future. Moreover, in the past year, we’ve seen the greatest jump in economic optimism from marketers ever before as optimism among all sectors is at 66.5, a 30.65% increase from last year. Though several economists have varying thoughts, most of them have agreed that the U.S. is still early in economic expansion with yields low and employment growing. 

To dig deeper into economic optimism among marketers and CMOs from all economic sectors (business-to-business products, business-to-business services, business-to-consumer products, business-to-consumer services), check out our last data study - Benzinga Reports: Marketing Statistics for Small Businesses.