How to survive tough times on lower marketing budgets

The first thing to do when looking at having to perform what seem like marketing miracles in these tough times with a lot less money, is to understand where most companies are coming from.

They are coming out of a boom period and inevitably when times are good large chunks of marketing budgets are allocated to projects and campaigns aimed at a sellers' market where sales are generated due to strong demand rather than just marketing efficiency. In some case marketing money is ploughed into a "big idea" or based on gut feel rather than market intelligence.

So, the first thing to do when moving from good times to bad is not to just try and do the same with less money.

Remembering that in good times R50 billion is wasted every year on inefficient marketing in South Africa, the first thing to do is a simple, very straightforward marketing audit. This will give you an immediate and accurate picture of what is and isn't efficient in your marketing strategy. I'd be happy to show you how.

You will inevitably find that when you cut out all the inefficiencies, the money you will need to keep marketing efficient in tough times will easily meet the new marketing budget demands.

Add to that Zero Budget Departure which has been developed specifically to get more bang for the marketing buck, along with marketing asset leveraging and a properly drawn up marketing performance and measurement checklist and you will be amazed at what can be achieved for less. And even more amazed at how much you have probably been wasting.

I'm doing a lot of this today, and it works.