When the economy gets tough, smart marketers get tougher. If you don't want the brand you've worked so hard to build to be swept away by the downstream financial current, you've got to put some muscle into shoring it up.
Though it may seem counter-intuitive, there is nothing more important than investing in your brand when customers are scared of spending. Never will your competitive advantage be greater than by keeping your brand front and center when other marketers are retrenching.
Biting the bullet to keep your campaign alive will pay off by increasing your market share when your competitors are pulling back or withdrawing altogether. Sustaining your market presence will also be a lot more effective in the long run, since your costs will be amortized over the life of the campaign. You will find it is significantly more expensive to re-establish a brand after a hiatus than it is to maintain consistent brand visibility.
The cost of supporting your brand's presence in a harsh economy can be somewhat offset by aggressive negotiating on media rates. With economic pressures scaring advertisers away, media companies are more willing to negotiate, particularly with agencies that buy in volume and can access value-added bonuses to incentivize brand advertisers. Now is the time to use that power to your advantage.
However, spending for the sake of staying visible isn't sufficient. The onus to be smart not only in your buys but in your messaging is great, and that may mean taking a hard look at what you're spending and where, as well as at why and how. Pound wise and penny foolish is not the way to go in this economic environment. The surest course is to make sure your marketing strategy is working overtime in all channels.
For example, one prospective client is taking the right steps by sustaining its local print and broadcast campaign. But the organization hasn't reexamined its messaging or investigated value-added opportunities that may be available from the outlets on its media plan. Management may be sacrificing the chance to expand the organization's reach or add another customer touch point, even without increasing the dollars it is spending.
Another client recently launched a new Web site that completely overhauled its brand identity and repositioned the firm in its market segment. But the company continues to issue a pre-packaged, printed industry newsletter that is generic in content and overloaded with detail. A much more effective - and cost efficient - approach would be a branded digital newsletter with links that drive subscribers to its new Web site, where the popularity of content can be measured, visitors can be tracked and additional interactive opportunities can be offered, without the cost of printing and postage.
The central role of a Web site in a company's communications is even more acute during a recession, not only because of the medium's low cost relative to traditional media, but also because of its singular ability to deliver customers who are ready to buy what you are selling. With print, broadcast, mail, out-of-home or any other form of traditional media, you've got to first locate the population that fits your customer profile and then deliver messaging to those people. That's why you might buy Newsday instead of the San Francisco Chronicle, or Long Island Business News instead of the Boston Business Journal. But with a well designed and optimized Web site, people who are looking for whatever you are selling will find you, without geographic or demographic limitation.
The key is to make sure your site is actively working for you. That means continually refreshing and evolving the content, providing lots of opportunities for customers to engage with your brand (e.g., by signing up for news bulletins, special promotions or other activities), and optimizing the site for search engines, so customers searching for products or services like yours will find you at or near the top of the results lists.
Public relations is another communications channel that can cost effectively elevate your visibility while reinforcing your brand image in a difficult economy. Because there are no media costs associated with traditional P.R., it can be one of the best investments of your campaign and create various opportunities for your customers to interact with your brand.
Smart marketers already recognize these types of strategies as part of their ongoing communications programs. But as economic pressures continue to force hard decisions about resource management, the challenge for us all is to stretch our imaginations as well as our budgets.