How
to maximise the efficiency of your marketing budget in a
downturn
“brands
that maintain or increase marketing spend in a recession
tend to do better than their rivals in the long run.' So
says Hugh Davidson, author of “Offensive Marketing”.
However, that
doesn’t mean keep spending money on arbitrary advertising
and promotions – but looking at how you can become
more efficient without negatively affecting demand for your
products or services.
Here are some
tips for getting more from your marketing:
1
Analyse your product/service range
Not all of them will contribute the same profit to your
business as others do, and in fact you may be surprised
at how much you are losing in some areas.
2
Get a firm grip on any external agencies you use
Armed with a little more marketing knowledge, you may be
surprised at how much a few well chosen questions and requests
to justify the selection and cost of activities might help
you to reign in spending on areas that are not yielding
results for your.
3
If you have in-house marketing, see where you can make your
processes more efficient.
One client we worked with reduced their time to implement
a campaign by weeks by cutting out costly reworking, loops
through compliance, extra print-runs and bureaucracy.
4
Make Sure you Aren’t Losing Out from your Promotions
Remember “Hoover”! The major success of their
advertising campaign linked to a free flight promotion left
them with egg on their face. Make sure that any discounts
you offer are not cancelling out the value to you of the
promotion.
5
Create a Great Experience and Reap the Benefits via Word
of Mouth
In
these times your reputation is key – people will recommend
a great experience – let’s face it – we
have so many poor examples that a stand out great service
is a joy to pass on. So really work on your customer service
and adding value to customers.
6
Stand out from the Crowd
If
your communications, adverts, brochures and website don’t
stand out then it may be time to revamp them. It is easy
to get jaded and tired and so a refresh may be in order.
7
Harness the Power of All Channels
By
integrating different communication channels you can increase
the effectiveness of campaigns by up to 100%. If you are
relying only on your website then this is unlikely to be
enough. A planned, integrated campaign is always more effective.
8
Try It, Test It, Tweak It, Try Again
Evaluate everything to identify what works and what doesn’t.
If you want to improve, you have to learn from mistakes
and understand what works. The best results come from a
more focussed, targeted approach, aimed at the right audience
and executed in the right way at the right time. Sounds
simple doesn’t it?
No self-respecting
accountant is going to keep giving marketing departments
a blank cheque without a sound business justification for
it. So as a marketeer you have to be able to present a good
business case, with grounds for demonstrating the worth
of your marketing plan, if you want to retain your position
and your budget. So look yourself in the mirror and ask
yourself, right now, can I say hand on heart that for every
pound I spend I can bring back more to the company? If not,
you have to ask yourself why you’re doing it.
For
help on any of these areas, contact
us.
