The Busy Words Blog

Call it a ‘Credit Crunch’, recession, downturn or even depression, it makes little difference to the overall effect; there is less money around and corporate budgets are being cut. Historically, the first business disciplines to get the squeeze are branding, advertising and marketing.

We’ve seen it so many times before, as soon as the money gets tight, the accountants that run the business decide to let the investment in branding and awareness tumble to a position close to the bottom of the business priorities list and the money spent on them is slashed.

Strong Brands Increase Sales
Now, if you are a person who is in control of or have influence over a corporate budget and are considering budget cuts, please take time first to understand the importance of branding to your business. The company’s brand is what sets it apart from others in the market, it has been proven so many times that it is almost common knowledge, if you have a strong brand consumers will choose your products or services over others in the market. A strong brand is also an excellent negotiating tool when dealing with wholesalers and resellers. If at this time your company already has a strong brand, it would be suicide to slash budgets now, as without the right treatment, the brand will weaken very quickly. This will have an effect on sales and margins. If anything, this is the time to increase branding activity. And if your brand is currently weak, get to work on building it fast.

Challenge the Marketing Team
That’s not to say you should meet all the demands of your marketing and branding teams. This is the time to challenge them. You understand the importance of the brand, so you don’t want branding activity to suffer. Before you cut their budgets dramatically, get marketing and branding teams to find ways to deliver even more value. Make them work hard by demonstrating how they can help secure orders in a more cost-effective way.

Large Agencies Vs Small or Freelance
There are cheaper ways to deliver marketing communications campaigns than using the expensive top-rated agencies and many of the smaller less known agencies and freelancers are former employees of the above, so they understand the branding process just as well. Get your marketing teams to shop around; you’ll be surprised at the savings to be made.

Communications Formats
Media space should be cheaper to buy in a downturn too, but is an online campaign more cost effective that traditional media? If your marketing team is not using a wide portfolio of communication formats, such as online, blogs, viral, PR, advertising, DM, print and broadcast, get them to explain why. Remember, the internet offers a more diverse choice of exposure to more target audiences than any other media, so if your marketing teams are not using it to its full potential, find out why. Online is proven to be very effective and can deliver results at a fraction of the cost.

So there’s my pitch to you. Instead of slashing marketing and branding expenditure, challenge the teams responsible to show how they can be more effective and add more value. Because when things start getting really difficult out there, effective marketing and branding is going to be what protects your sales revenue.

Richard Jebb
Freelance Copywriter
www.wordsthat-work.co.uk