Perhaps a first-quarter trade show cost more than expected, or the boss surprised you with a new campaign requirement, or maybe the original goals for the year have been revamped. Whatever the reason, many aerospace marketers are starting to feel a mid-year budget pinch.
What’s more, regardless of sales performance, you know more money is not coming your way. If this all sounds familiar, you can likely relate to a growing sense of panic as you look for ways to survive until the New Year.We’re here to help with 7 tried-and-true tips and recommendations to achieve your budget targets without sacrificing effective marketing. They key to success is to step back and take a fresh look at your entire marketing program. Reviewing and re-evaluating everything you have done and will do reveals what’s working, what’s not, and identifies the areas where you can adjust spending to better reflect your current reality.
1) Reassess goals and objectives. If the reasons behind your marketing have changed, then your marketing approach needs to change, too. Perhaps a focus on increasing brand awareness has shifted to the need for lead generation, for example. This would eliminate any need for pricey print advertising, resulting in significant savings that could totally put your budget back on track.
2) Examine and analyze leads. Sales may be pressing for new lead generation programs without working the leads they already have. If this is the case, perhaps you can afford to scale back and invest a little less in this area for some period of time.
3) Review metrics for all marketing. Identify which channels are producing quality leads as well as those that are failing to deliver. Focus future spending only on the channels that are giving you the results you need, and watch the savings add up.
4) Look for efficiency with processes and automation. How can you use automation to save time and money? Have you documented processes to ensure marketing efforts that work are easily repeatable? What marketing deliverables can be templated to make development and deployment easier and faster? Substantial reductions are possible if you are diligent about working more efficiently.
5) Repurpose content. Revisit content that’s been developed both for this year and previous years. Do you really need to start from scratch with something new – or are there opportunities to refresh existing materials? Can a sales presentation for a product be used as the foundation for a short video? How about taking the same sales presentation and incorporating the information on your website, improving SEO in the process? Developing new content requires time and resources from many areas of the organization. If reworking what you have is an option, it’s worth exploring.
6) Review the sales cycle/process and buying journey. You may identify gaps in content that need to be filled to ensure your prospects are getting the information they need and want to make a buying decision. Working in a strategic and targeted way will ensure that you are wisely investing resources in the areas that will pay dividends.
7) Evaluate marketing technology (MarTech). This is a big area for potential savings. That’s because we can often fail to take full advantage of the subscriptions or technologies we purchased to make us more effective and efficient. One study found that 38% of B2B software paid for by enterprises goes to waste, and in some large organizations, the annual cost of unused licenses can average $7.4 million. Make a point of determining if you’re using all software to its best advantage and then act accordingly, making a plan to leverage or eliminate individual MarTech tools accordingly. This resource can help.
Need help with your mid-year marketing budget assessment? Schedule a consultation with BDN today by filling out this form.
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