Defending Your Marketing Budget!

When the economy is tough management's first response is to reduce marketing budgets. What management sometimes forgets to remember...... that during any period of economic downturn your best customers become someone else's best prospects. When you stop inviting them to do business with you, a more aggressive competitor may become much more attractive.

According to Nancy Schwartz author of Effective Marketing "It may seem right (politically) to accept the managements decision to slash your marketing budget, but it's the wrong move to make. In the long run, accepting a significant budget cut will harm your organization"

"No program succeeds without participants; no service lasts without users; few organizations stay healthy without a strong donor and volunteer base -- and marketing is the way that these groups are reached, engaged, retained and motivated to act. Challenge your organization's leaders NOW if they're shying away from investing in marketing. If they do, your organization will really suffer long term. That's what you have to point out -- as diplomatically as possible. And far better than just talking about it, you have to prove it. Rather than taking a defensive position when faced with budget cuts, proactively respond to your leadership's challenges."

So how can you defend your marketing budget, and make your customers experience exceptional.

1. Never take your focus off your customers. Cherish them, and make sure they know it. Make their Personal Experience Factor exceptional.

2. Media pricing is driven by market demand. Take advantage of the weak demand and the resultant drop in price to buy even more market presence without increasing your advertising budget.

3. Craft a plan tying marketing work directly your goals, and track the impact of every effort before, during and after the work to enable ongoing course correction.

4. Arm yourself with as many hard stats and success stories as you can. Talk about what colleague and competitive organizations are doing, and what you'll lose if your organization retreats now.

Does Your Website Need a Face-Lift?

The New Year is fast approaching and maybe
it's time you rethought your website’s purpose.
The Internet is constantly changing and so is
your clients/prospective clients expectations.
Visitors expect your site to be “cutting edge”
or at least “up-to-date.”

Things to keep in mind while
revamping your site:

1. Design with optimization in mind. Search engine optimization (SEO) means having text friendly elements on
your website which will make your site easily search able.

2. Visitors want what they are looking for quickly and easily. Spotlight or call to action important services on your homepage (ex: “click here to…” or “free download”).

3. Be proactive and engaging. Start a blog. Invite people to be a part of your online presence. Ask visitors to post their comments. The point of
a blog is to share and get involved in a community that is active and listening.

4. Ask your marketing team or web designer for their suggestions.
They may have ideas that you hadn’t thought of.

Check out our newest "green" web design: mydejavusalon.com

~Melissa Behrens
Senior Graphic Designer, The Byne Group
(source: Must-Have Website Features for 2009, by Shaheen,
The New York Enterprise Report, October 2008.)