Marketing
trends:
Short-term marketing expense vs. long-term brand
investment
As business
success becomes increasingly reliant upon the effectiveness of an
organization’s external brand – not only through highly visible channels
but through every customer touchpoint – how can marketing departments
persuade senior management to stop thinking in terms of discretionary
marketing ‘spend’ and to instead recognize the value of long-term brand
investment?
Brand Matters
has some answers that may help.
Q – What
is long-term brand investment?
PM – The application of
investment fundamentals to the marketing function. For example, defining
clear investment objectives, determining risk comfort and managing risk,
tracking and measuring results as an ROI component, etc.
Q – What
are the benefits?
PM – As you become more selective about the
target groups to be reached and the ways in which to reach them, ROI
increases. The focus on measurement enables accurate assessment of the
effectiveness of specific components, and subsequent refinement where
necessary. You can also benchmark against competitive
spend.
Q – Are
we talking advertising?
PM – It may be part of the strategy, but
brand awareness development goes far beyond the old marketing model of
throwing money at media. It’s about building future goodwill among key
stakeholders – obviously customers, but also shareholders, employees, and
business partners. This can involve PR, sponsorships, industry association
involvement – anything from seemingly small initiatives such as a web site
domain name to an online campaign.
Q – What
are the first steps?
PM – Before you do anything, you must have
a validated market positioning. Think through what you’re saying and who
you’re saying it to; where you are today, and where you want to be.
Develop a simple, relevant positioning based on your core brand
differentiators and gain internal stakeholder
alignment.
