Last year finance directors ‘slashed and burned’ through marketing budgets. They needed to reduce operating costs and marketing was an easy target. The cuts involved no redundancy payouts and delivered immediate savings. But this short term tactic came at a cost; companies lost control of their destiny and were reduced to chasing market prices down to maintain volume.
But to the future, as we slowly emerge from recession, most senior managements, even in the commodity-oriented timber industry, see their future salvation based on a strategy of differentiation. But differentiation requires ‘smart’ marketing. Customers don’t just ask for differentiated products, they need first to be made aware of them by marketing and secondly to be persuaded that they offer better value. Distributors usually only stock these products if you guarantee to create ‘pull-through’ and without it, re-stocking orders don’t happen.
So given a strategy of differentiation, where should you be spending your promotional dollars, pounds or euros?
There’s now a breathtaking array of ways to influence your target market. Exciting, different, intriguing and ‘smart’ ways that can better engage and involve users with your products and brand.
By advertising in innovative ways, your messages will achieve standout, crucially important given that we’re exposed to some 3,000 commercial messages daily.
For example how do you influence small builders? Today their primary communication media is probably the mobile phone, so shouldn’t timber companies be exploiting their Smartphone usage and creating iPhone ‘apps’ to engage with them?
Communications in 2010 demand multimedia solutions. Print advertising might remain the lead media, but increasingly a whole support package of media activity is essential. We need to reach specifiers and users through a series of touchpoints in both their professional and personal lives as these merge and working hours become open ended thanks to Smartphones and laptops. We now live with 24/7 connectivity via the mobile internet.
Digital media in 2010 offer unparalleled opportunities. Online banner campaigns offer advertising rates which are measurably cost effective, not least because users can hotlink straight to an advertiser’s website. Likewise the use of ‘search’ has exploded and should be a key part of every company’s marketing programme.
But there are more ways to ensure engagement with your differentiated products and services. Mobile phones, social networking (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), ‘virtual’ exhibitions, electronic and mobile customer relationship marketing (eCRM and mCRM) have opened a galaxy of opportunities. Most will require investment in electronic databases but once that platform has been built, this resource becomes one of the most strategically important and cost-effective business assets a company can own.
These digital channels allow users to link directly to product websites, hence yours must become a top priority for marketing investment. Specifiers increasingly want their production information online, so your site needs not just to be the best in its sector, but the best in the industry. In this digital era, it is the brand and product experience for customers. It’s your end user sales force (your sales staff talk regularly to distributors and procurement but only infrequently to those who use and specify your products). Just as you seek the best sales team to represent you, maybe today an even higher business priority is ensuring your website and its promotion is best in class.
Planning and creating advertising campaigns in 2010 is far more complex than it was at the beginning of the millennium. But advertising has also become more accountable so investment in marketing is easier to justify. Which should halt that finance director in his tracks!
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