Royal Mail’s second marketing tracking poll, which involved more than 100 marketing directors, has found that they believe that there will be an increase in marketing budgets over the rest of the year.

The survey has also found that one-third of UK marketing directors predicated that an increase in spend was likely over the rest of 2010, while less than one in seven (13 percent) expects their budgets to be cut.

Last year only one quarter of marketers expected to see an increase in their budget, while 25 percent expected to have to drop their budgets and 49 percent expected them to stay the same.

45 per cent of respondents also chose SEO as their most important marketing medium, followed by social media at 42 percent while 27 percent said that direct mail would be a priority channel in the following months.

Mark Thomson, media director at Royal Mail, said: “This, the second such poll of The Marketing Society’s members, paints a positive picture for the marketing industry and indicates optimism that we will continue to climb slowly out of economic difficulty. It seems that marketers are cautiously confident for the second half of 2010 with many expecting to have more budget at their disposal.”

Thomson added; “The focus of budget on more tactical objectives such as customer acquisition and retention indicates that marketers want tangible results from their spend, which plays well to the strengths of media channels such as mail.”