Research company Shape the Future's business spending survey showed that 23.9% of UK firms intend to increase their print spends during 2009, while 21.2% would up spend on networking, and 19.7% would invest in website optimisation.

Some 36.4% of respondents were set to increase overall marketing budgets, while around a fifth of respondents planned to increase direct marketing. Only 9% said they were going to reduce marketing spend.

However, Matthew Parker, director of consultancy Print & Procurement, said: "I’m not convinced this research necessarily reflects the full picture on print spends. However, I would say that the increase in e-marketing activity is also creating new opportunities for printed marketing collateral."

He added that an increase in marketing activities was a positive thing, though stressed that these activities might not be related to print.

"It would be interesting to find out what proportion of growing marketing budgets is actually going to be spent on printed products," said Parker.

According to Shape the Future, only 18.6% of companies surveyed planned to reduce spending on print.

The survey stated that business services companies were the most likely to boost marketing budgets, while property services, retailers and wholesalers were more likely to decrease spending.