OK, so the economy sucks, and we've all lost a good amount of money in our investment portfolios. And yet, a whole lot of television commercials, billboards, print ads and radio spots are hounding us about "re-balancing our portfolios."
It got me thinking. Shouldn't smart marketers also consider re-balancing their marketing budgets as a result of these trying economic times?
Just because you've ALWAYS done something one way doesn't mean you need to go on repeating the same thing over and over. Remember Einstein's definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
If you want to change your marketing results, it just may be time to re-balance your marketing portfolio.
Several new and existing clients have come to us recently asking us to take a look at their overall marketing expenditures. In every case we were able to point out a large number of wasted expenditures -- primarily advertising buys that remain on schedules because they've "always been there," or because "the ad rep buys me a bottle of Maker's Mark every Christmas."
But the world has changed. Unless you are confident that ALL of your marketing and communication expenditures are delivering a real return on your investment (and not just another cost headed straight to the wrong side of the balance sheet), it's probably time to change your way of thinking too.
In flush times, it's easy to just continue doing what you've always done, because, well, we were all making good money, right? And what "worked" from a marketing standpoint wasn't nearly as critical as it is now, during the "Great Recession."
Posted by John Lonsdorf
President
R&J Public Relations
www.RandJpr.com
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It's true that you have to rebalance your media spend, but you also have to adjust your sales and marketing strategy. Maybe there are different audiences that you had previously rejected as weaker that might be stronger in this economy. Maybe your investment can be repurposed.
ReplyDeleteI was speaking with Scott Walode of Exhibit Craft, and he had the brilliant idea of taking the tradeshow displays from some of his non-profit customers and re-using those cases in their headquarter lobbies as a way of showcasing donating corporate sponsors. Waste is minimized, customer appreciation elevated.
Not every company will need to reinvent themselves, but certainly the edge of uncertainty can generate new ideas and innovation.
I've been doing much more pay-per-click placement for my customers on Google, Facebook and Linkedin. In fact, I did some for the NJ MarCom event to reach audiences that previously had never heard of the event.
In the discussions with my clients, I continuously focus on identifying what item(s) are their highest profit margin, and which are their best cash flow. Then we talk about how and if the two can lead to cross sell/up-sell situations.