If you have that kind of relationship with your clients, you had better really think before you speak concerning what kind of cuts you would recommend to help a business survive. It is a great opportunity to keep your advertising budgets strong but you had also be prepared to show the return on investment you are able to provide for your services and show your client how to do the same with all media that they use.
Online Metrics Insider posted "Your Star Is About To Shine" concerning abilities you may have to look at a business and help your clients analyze what needs help. When I was managing in Ontario, Oregon I actually had a client ask me to sit down and look at his business with him and determine where he was having problems. He had already had the conversation with his accountant but kept any of that information from me as we discussed the business and he told me what was happening. He was in a position where certain parts of his business were functioning in the black and other sectors were pulling him into the red and if he didn't do something quick he was going to find himself out of business. My experience has been that you have to take each "profit center" of a business and make it stand on its' own. In this case he had service trucks that were very easy to track and to monitor for positive cash flow but he also purchased a great deal of parts and equipment and was having a hard time putting a metric on that part of the business. We ended up looking at profit margins for that piece of business and targeting reasonable improvements based upon smart purchasing concepts like buying in bulk and shopping the market to bring the best return. When it was said and done he had improved the performance of each "profit center"of his business and sold off the entity that he couldn't make work because of the time, capital, and concentration his main profit centers required. I recommended he sell the entity that was buying advertising from the stations, knowing full well I would need to work hard to keep the business on the air with the new owner but I was able to show them the return they were having before the business was sold to them. That was vital. I was also able to start a campaign with the service industry because of the trust that had been developed and the reasonable expectations we were able to set with the EFS Generator on calls to his business for new service.
The article talks about the art of being a sustaining resource to your clients and really listening to what they need from the marketing standpoint which is really very similar to what I experienced with the business owner...break it down into profit centers and make each stand on its own.....
"1. It's About the Customer
2. It's Political
Here's how Kristin explained item #1 in February, 1994: "If your delivery medium was water, broadcasting would be like using a big hose to spray a crowd of prospects, hoping some of them will enjoy getting wet. Narrowcasting, a term used by producers of specialized cable TV programs, is like using a smaller hose and only aiming it at people who have already expressed an interest in getting wet. Cybercasting (marketing on-line) is the act of creating a pond of water in cyberspace, telling people that you now have a pond, and inviting them to come for a swim. Prospects can visit your pond anytime they want, stay as long as they want, and dive in as deeply as they want. The extent to which they immerse themselves in your pond is determined completely by their own personal interest."
My shorthand for that is: Make your Web site about your customer and not about your company. Easy to say, tough to do.
I am a fanatic when it comes to testing and measuring. I know what I like when it comes to advertising, marketing and customer service, but I am not the target audience. What rings true to me may not ring true to the great masses of potential customers for a given product or service. So test and measurement are feed for the goose that lays the golden eggs.
However, as Bob Page, manager of analytics engineering for Yahoo, likes to point out, all metrics are political. He is so right. Walk into an office with a chart, graph or spreadsheet in your hand and the person on the other side of the desk will immediately assume you are there to judge them.
Kristin Zhivago described budgetary politics as the corporate Power Baton. She devotes a whole chapter to this in her latest book, "Rivers of Revenue."
When times are great, the advertising and branding people hold the Power Baton; they have their hands on the budgetary controls. All the senior executives in the firm smile broadly around their lit cigars and watch Super Bowl ads and blimps bearing their product's name.
Then, times get a bit tighter. The Power Baton moves, sometimes undetected, over to the promotions people. What, the company wonders, can we do to boost sales? When the profitometer needle swings lower still, the Baton shifts out of marketing and into the sales department. The people with their feet on the street who speak directly to customers hold the reigns and call the shots. Finally, when the red ink outweighs the black, the CFO holds sway.
Guess where the profitometer is pointing now?
Guess which corporate expenditure the CFO is least likely to defend when it's time to make cuts?
Now is the time for all good marketers to make friends with the CFO. Go into that den of bean counters and show them your beans. Do not show them your bean plants, your fertilizer, your complex watering system and your trusty crop rotation schedule. Do not try to explain cross-breeding and organic fungal growth control through the use of enzymatic synthesis. You will only get dull stares in return.
When you become outraged at how thick-skulled they are, and with voice raised, ask them whether they are ignorant or apathetic, they will reply, "Don't know and don't care."
Instead, show them the beans, the whole beans and nothing but the beans.
Explain that you can control the size and number of new beans in each harvest. If they are willing to give you the resources for the complex cultivation necessary, you can promise a return on their investment. You now have their attention. You now have their interest.
At the moment they ask you how much you want them to invest, the Power Baton has started its transition over to the marketing department. Once they ask how much, the rest is just negotiation.
Indeed, your star is about to shine."