Be Rewarded With Budgets For Creativity In 2009

Jan 5, 2009 by Mark Maier

While the "Economy Weighs Heavily On Marketing Execs for 2009", there are areas to focus on to increase your budgets in 2009 according to Advertising Age.  Of special interest to me was the areas of creativity and innovation where we can add to our bottom line by bringing a solution to the table....

"The surprise is that there are still pockets of optimism. For instance, almost three-fourths said they think spending on research and development, along with innovation initiatives, will stay the same or even increase (21% in the latter category). Spending on market research is also expected to stay the same or increase, according to two-thirds of the marketers surveyed.

"On one hand, they believe that in this economy they have to know their current customer well and keep them happy. But they also acknowledge the use of things like competitive intelligence and data mining as important concepts," said Tom Anderson, managing partner of Anderson Analytics."

As far as marketing concepts that are important to marketers this year, no big surprises here....

"The overall trend result is a back-to-basics strategy by marketers. When asked what marketing concepts are "most important," they ranked as the top four customer satisfaction (79%), customer retention (76%), marketing ROI (65%) and brand loyalty (61%). And while those ideas were also deemed as "very important" in last year's study, each was boosted by anywhere from four to 12 percentage points this time. "

Now how do we execute programs for our clients that meet these goals?  In-store surveys will help determine customer satisfaction and customer retention or you can accomplish the same goal with secret shopper campaigns that are meant to help your clients become better and improve areas that need help. To make sure they are achieving ROI, you first need to complete a Customer Marketing Profile with them to determine budgets, goals, and objectives and create a plan that will generate reasonable Return on Investement by using the EFS Generator.  The fourth componant is using good Top Of Mind advertising concepts with annual marketing campaigns that include great creative to drive the brand year around.

Who are marketers focussed on in 2009?

"Baby boomers remained the most important demographic group, according to 78% of these senior-level marketers. However, the Gen Y and Gen X each jumped by more than 10 percentage points in importance, as both crossed the important 50% majority mark by several points.

"Overall [marketers] seem to be casting a wider net, reflecting that in a down economy you can't only target who you did last year," Mr. Anderson said. "

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