With marketing budgets being squeezed, it’s vital marketers turn up the creative volume to eleven.
By Daisy Holloway
Global VP, Integrated Marketing Strategy
The current somewhat precarious economic climate is seeing organizations err on the side of caution when it comes to budget spend. No department has gone unscathed, but the one that’s experiencing a bigger squeeze than most is the marketing department.
There’s a common preconception that marketing cuts mean less creativity, but this isn’t the case, as all this leads to is less than good marketing. If we’re only focusing on optimization, optimization, and yet more optimization, then we’ll get bored. And if we’re bored, you can bet your bottom dollar that our audience will get bored as well.
Creative can’t be cut
So, what’s the answer? In a nutshell – don’t scrimp on creative. It might seem like the most obvious element in the marketing mix to face the chop, but good creative is not a luxury. It’s a necessity.
LinkedIn makes a persuasive case for the importance of good creative, and the impact it has. Just think – how long does a creative execution need to be in the market for? Probably longer than it needed to be a few years ago, which is why it must make as big an impact on the audience as possible. It may seem like we’re stating the obvious, but it’s worth reiterating – cutting budget from creative means it won’t be as good, and its impact lessens.
Don’t just do – efficiency saves $$ for creative
Similarly, Gartner argues that if your department faces budget cuts, you need to stop “doing more.” By utilizing your martech stack effectively and being critical about the channels you use at each stage of the funnel, you can make your marketing programs more efficient. Doing this means you can still save your precious creative budget.
Tight budgets can force creativity
Generally, having less money makes you more creative – necessity is the mother of invention. In everyday life we’ve all been affected to some degree by the cost-of-living crisis, causing us to adjust our habits and spending. And it’s no different when it comes to making that money go further in business. In order for your budget to work smarter we need to think smarter as well.
Creative is the lifeblood of any campaign, because if you can’t grab your audience’s attention, you’ll get nowhere. And there’s no reason why we can’t capitalize on the situation and use it as an excuse to make marketing more fun. Ultimately, you can’t have an effective marketing campaign without investing in good creative – otherwise you’re just wasting your money. Once you’ve nailed the creative, the rest should just fall into place.
Leave the competition behind
Don’t forget that the competition is fierce out there, so if your creative stands out and grabs your audience’s attention, you’ll gain the advantage. This creativity also applies to methods – what other ways are there to target your audience, rather than going down the familiar route? Where’s the sweet spot?
See this as an opportunity to think outside the box, take some risks, and come up with some attention-grabbing, original creative ideas. No one has time to be bored.
To find out how we can help you do more with less, without being boring, connect with our team.
About the author
Daisy is an award-winning B2B marketer with extensive experience in building strategies to deliver against company objectives, through the deployment of data-driven brand and demand programs that maximise the available MarTech stack.
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