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Lean Marketing for Lean Times
When economies tumble revenues follow. Slashing costs is the natural impulse, but reducing staff and selling assets can prove shortsighted if the economy rebounds unexpectedly. Marketing, by contrast, presents quicker, easier, and more painless cost reduction alternatives. But, will eliminating marketing ultimately harm the organization more or less than cuts in other areas?
The dilemma is as old as marketing itself: should companies and organizations market or not during a recession? Putting a halt to marketing may well be fast and easy, but in the process you could inadvertently starve your organization. Eating habits present a helpful analogy. In good times we tend to savor fine foods and wines, but when recessions arrive we don’t stop eating entirely. Instead, we turn to more frugal soups, stews, and brews that continue to nourish, if less enticingly.
Marketing similarly sustains organizations through deep economic swings, maintaining customer awareness and assuring them the brands they trust are still there. Surviving the inevitable lean spells, then, requires a shift to lower cost marketing tactics, such as public relations and publicity. Although such tools provide less control than advertising, their many options provide a broad menu of economical promotion opportunities.
OPTIONS & INNOVATIONS
Low cost options available to the organization depend largely on its circumstances. While many opportunities might not be readily apparent, a bit of careful thought or brainstorming typically brings several to mind. Here are a few examples.
- FEATURE ARTICLES: The business press and trade publications, both online and off-line, are always seeking fresh content that will draw readers’ attention, topics that go beyond the latest new product release or executive appointment.
- REPORTS: Consumers and businesses are usually eager to know about trends and changes that might affect them directly or indirectly; offering such reports builds good will while maintaining links with customers and prospects.
- WHITE PAPERS: These information vehicles are ubiquitous in the technology sector, but can be effective elsewhere, too. White papers and reports lend themselves to low-cost electronic distribution, and can be promoted inexpensively in a variety of channels.
- ANNOUNCEMENTS: During economic upswings organizations often handle special events and significant changes with brief press releases, but many could be the topic of more substantive messages that would draw greater media attention.
- LETTERS: Letters provide an unusual, and therefore intriguing, way to maintain customer and prospect contacts; signed by a senior executive and carefully written, they can do much to elevate buyers’ perceptions.
- UPDATES: An update is much like a newsletter, but published on an as-needed basis instead of regularly. It gives readers insight about what is new and noteworthy in the organization without generating information overload.
- GUIDES: The performance of most products and services can be enhanced by the ways they are used; offering a guide that provides tips and hints for better performance creates further customer contact and good will.
- WEBSITES: Lean economic times are ideal for reviewing and upgrading website structure and content; websites gain importance when curtailing advertising and improving them costs relatively little.
Like broadcast and print advertising, these promotional tools must reach their target audiences to be effective, but Internet and other distribution options are typically more economical.
IMPROVING CONTROL
While marketers can control advertising with relative precision, the promotion alternatives mentioned above are less precise. Their dissemination can nonetheless be controlled to a very reasonable extent. Inexpensive direct marketing techniques, for example, can be used to announce the availability of reports, white papers, and guides, which can also be offered via sales calls and letters, a website, or mentioned in articles and media appearances. Tracking response from various distribution methods helps organizations measure effectiveness of messages and channels.
The burden of control and performance assessment for the tools mentioned here rests largely with the organization, a task few may be accustomed to handling. By contrast, organizations typically expect advertising agencies to analyze and report on the results of the work they do on the client’s behalf. So organizations need to be proactive in this important regard.
RELEVANCE AND QUALITY
The success of promotional tools, such as those mentioned, depends on the relevance and quality of the information they contain as perceived by their audience. Irrelevant or unhelpful messages will quickly cause readers to tune out future communications efforts. Management should therefore take great care to craft communications that are relevant and helpful to most customers and prospects. And because today’s readers usually have busy schedules, content needs to be presented succinctly whatever the vehicle used; this means copy that is easy to scan and key points that are readily apparent.
In summary, when lean times descend on organizations, freezing all marketing expenditures can do substantial harm in the long term. Alternatively, marketers should shift their focus to the many economical promotion tools available, including feature articles, reports, guides, letters, updates, and white papers. Thoughtfully developed and distributed, such communications tools work well to maintain awareness and rapport with customers and prospects alike.
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