All marketing practitioners are seeking ways to save money and get a bigger bang for their budget buck. How to do that isn't at all obvious. But, sometimes, the answer can be staring you in the face!
No. 1: Seek opportunity in adversity
Inertia, complacency, and overconfidence are your inner demons. Get rid of them. They'll cost you money. Reading the writing on the wall, on the other hand, is a great place to start to save money.
Too many marketers pay insufficient attention to the early warning signs of big shifts in demographics, technology, and regulation. As a result, they miss out on a great opportunity to proactively innovate to take advantage of those shifts.
Turn adversity on its head and get it to work in your favor. The key is to translate challenges into opportunities (glass half full...) and use constraints to spur innovation (necessity as mother of invention...).
No. 2: Do more with less
Being resourceful in a resource-scare world should be second nature. But it isn't.
You don't necessarily need a multimillion-dollar budget. In fact, some of the most successful in our industry are those able to get more from less by applying frugality to every activity they perform. They tend to work for organizations that are efficient, and by that I mean they are frugal in how they design products, how they produce them, how they deliver them, and how they perform after-sales or after-care.
Their frugality shows up not only in their parsimonious use of capital and natural resources but also in how they maximize their limited time and energy. Rather than driving everything themselves, which can be very costly, they rely extensively on partners and collaborators to perform various operations, saving resources, time ,and money.
Try to reuse and combine rather than create something new from scratch.
No. 3: Think and act flexibly
Try walking across a road in Mumbai, India. You'll make it to the other side only if you're prepared to think and act flexibly! And there's no point thinking the Highway Code (Rules of the Road) is going to be your savior when you're behind the wheel. It won't. Linear thinking won't always help. The same is true in our industry.
Western brand owners and their leaders often operate in a black-and-white world that confers a sense of predictability to the order of things. For example, competitors are bad and partners are good; regulations are typically bad for business whereas protectionist policies are good; and although some brand owners may like doing good as part of their corporate social responsibility initiatives, they worry primarily about doing well financially.
Yet such binary thinking that's anchored in deep-seated assumptions prevents brand owners from reconciling priorities, a process that could yield creative, innovative, and highly cost-effective marketing solutions. The sheer diversity, volatility, and unpredictability of global markets demand that we be flexible. Inflexibility will result in failure and a waste of resources.
We must think laterally, out of the box. We must experiment and improvise.
No. 4: Keep it simple
In the developing world, consumers are put off by complexity. Complicated and elaborate communication is costly and can be a distraction. In the Western hemisphere, we seem obsessed with everything being bigger and brighter. We often get seduced by the power of technology. The world beyond 2013 won't be like that.
Consumers are down-shifting and opting for simpler, more meaningful lives. Brand owners that respond to these attitudes, values, beliefs, perceptions, and behaviors will benefit in the long run.
No. 5: Use the Web
Being part of the community, being yourself, being transparent, being a great listener and a genuine problem solver build trust, and the fastest way to do so with the biggest community of like-minded people is via the Web.
No. 6: Avoid dependency relationships with external agencies
The only practical way to do this is to be focused on outcomes, not just outputs. Share the learning of triumphs and mistakes. By making a commitment to triple-loop learning, you'll save a fortune in the long run as the agencies won't suggest strategies that don't work and you won't blow a big fat hole in your budget finding out. Learn as you go.
No. 7: Spend less than others say you should
Anyone who's ever been into a car showroom to buy a new or used car will know that having an idea of what you want to spend can evaporate in the presence of a convincing salesperson who knows how to pull emotional levers and customize the product "just for you."
It's not just alloy wheels or a nicer in-car entertainment system, but it's the extended warranty, freedom of not worrying about the gap in resale value when you go to sell the car at the end of the payments period, and other extras' that all come at a price. You invariably end up with a figure that's more than the one you started with.
The same is true in our industry, particularly when designing and building a website. Beware of buying extra bells and whistles. Chances are, you don't need them.
No. 8: Don't just spend time with people you know; network instead
In our industry, many of us prefer to keep the company of those whom we know. But growth of a commercial enterprise demands networking. For one thing, building a new relationship with a customer or client could unlock marketing and sales opportunities well beyond the spending constraints of those you already know.
Effective communication increasingly depends on word-of-mouth. And the best way to stimulate effective word-of-mouth is to network. And the best bit is that it doesn't have to cost you anything if you join a relevant social networking group where you are free to exchange thoughts and ideas.
No. 9: Collaborate with your customers and clients for profit
Why use expensive market research to come up with insights and answers to some of the most challenging sales and marketing issues when you can collaborate with your customers and clients and get them to help you design your products and services in the first place? After all, if they like them, they'll want to buy them.
No. 10: Know your ends from your means
Winston Churchill, one of the greatest statesmen who ever lived, once said: "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."
The best communication plans and investment in a range of activities will all turn to dust if they don't deliver the outcomes you're looking for. Being outcome-focused rather than output-driven means that you know your ends from your means.
And that's by far the most profitable place to be.
