2013 budget white paper
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
1/28
10 Proven Ways to
STRETCH YOURMARKETING BUDGET
WHITE PAPER
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
2/28
2
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
3/28
3
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
Introduction 4
Dont skimp on content 6
Turn your spokespeople into assets 8
Nurture your brand ambassadors 10
Find your rich seam of data 12
Eliminate bad event habits 14
Choose your reporting and monitoring tools wisely 16
Ensure your web site isnt leaking leads 18
Get smart about SEO 20
Start a social advertising program 22
Make your marketing truly global 24
Conclusion 26
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
4/28
INTRODUCTION
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
5/285
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
During budget-planning season, marketing teams are often faced with the
challenge of how to achieve more with less. Given the increased scrutiny
of marketing budgets in these tough economic times, it is no surprise that
every dollar, pound or euro allocated toward marketing efforts needs to be
attributed to direct results that impact the companys bottom line.
Today, marketing must clearly demonstrate return-on-investment by generating
leads, cross-selling additional products and services to existing customers
or improving the overall customer experience.
As a marketer, if you are deep in your planning and budget exercise for the
next year be sure to consider these approaches for extracting the maximum
value from your spend.
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
6/28
DONT SKIMP ONCONTENT
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
7/287
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
Do you have a line item in your budget for content generation? If not, you
may be creating a false economy.
We live in an age of brand journalism and a strong ow of original content
allows you to get far greater bang for your buck. A single piece of unique
research, for example, can be turned into PR material, an email campaign,
a landing page, a Webinar and a blog post. It may take time and investment
upfront, but great content will deliver much further-reaching benets than
simply populating all of these channels with traditional promotional messages.
Too often content is seen as a nice-to-have. Its something to focus on after
you have the basics in place. But today, content IS the basic requirement.
Make sure you have some budget built into all your campaigns for content.
Better still, create a central content budget and create materials that can
feed all your channels and programs.
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
8/28
TURN YOURSPOKESPEOPLE
INTO ASSETS
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
9/28
9
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
There is a fundamental, and costly misperception about spokesperson training.
80 per cent of the time is usually spent on coaching spokespeople how to
avoid answering questions. The reality is, most spokespeople will never be
in a confrontational media interview so their carefully constructed and highly
expensive armor will never pay its dues.
Instead, most of the interviews your spokespeople do will be opportunities
to deliver value. A good spokesperson knows what a reporter is looking for
and concisely delivers it to ensure inclusion in the article. But more than
that, a spokesperson that is an asset can spot other potential opportunities
and think on their feet to turn a so-so article into a great one. And, a reallyvaluable spokesperson makes such a positive impression that they become
a regular source of expertise for the reporter and of ideas for you.
Not all of this can be trained of course. So dont waste precious budget on
training large numbers of spokespeople simply because they have the right
title or experience. But if you have someone with great spokesperson potential
in your company, its worth investing in regular practical coaching to turn
them into a valuable asset.
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
10/28
NURTUREYOUR BRAND
AMBASSADORS
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
11/28
11
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
Your brand ambassadors comprise your employees, your executive team,
your customers, your partners, your vendors and any other individual that
interacts with your company in a positive manner.
Leverage the ambassadors you currently have and amplify them through
content. Get them to write and speak about core company news, customer
stories or other industry events. For example, if you have a product team in
your company, get them to create content for your corporate blog, or create
videos of them discussing your newest product in a passionate way. Distribute
this content across all your channels. Have each employee set up Google
author tags in Google+ and encourage them to interact on other industry
blogs and forums.
Unless these ambassadors are already social media savvy, youll need to
allocate some budget to training them on social media governance mattersso that employees are comfortable with the dos and donts of interacting on
social channels.
This investment will pay off if youre successful in getting ambassadors to
contribute content. But getting them to do so frequently can be a challenge.
Here are some easy tips to consider:
Publish a list of topics or suggestions for content and ask for volunteers
who feel comfortable creating content for each topic. If no volunteers
come forth, recommend certain individuals based on their area of expertise.
Create an editorial calendar. Share it with each contributor, and assign
on his or her Outlook calendars deadlines for when their content is due.
Dont try to do too much; keep the calendar simple. Even getting a post a
month from each individual is a win.
In some cases, have your marketing or PR team create outlines or story
shells that your subject matter experts can then expand upon. That wayyou get the benet of more contributors without putting excess burden of
responsibility on them.
Stuck for content ideas? Search your social channels and your competitors
channels and uncover topics and areas of concern your prospects and
customers are experiencing in your industry. Assigning people to respond
to questions in LinkedIn discussion groups, for example, is an easy way to
generate relevant content.
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
12/28
FIND YOUR RICHSEAM OF DATA
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
13/28
13
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
All companies have data or research that is unique to them and that can be
leveraged as a strategic secret weapon to unlock new opportunities. It is
well worth investing time in examining your data assets. For example, a cloud
computing company may possess a wealth of data on load volumes that it
can then aggregate and extrapolate into unique talking points on customer
adoption of the cloud. By publishing this data in a unique and compelling
manner, they have just created shareable content that will generate greater
awareness for them. Whats more, as media outlets increase their focus on
so-called data journalism, this is exactly the type of information that can form
the foundations of an outstanding PR campaign.
Because there is now greater access to this kind of data, survey-based research
is starting to lose some of its appeal. Theres something less credible about
ndings based on what people say they do in a survey versus what they
actually do. If youre going to spend budget on research for PR and content
marketing purposes, make sure you have identied a truly unique angle.
Similarly, there are many other options today for conducting market research
without having to default to expensive surveys or focus groups. Social media
listening tools are a great place to start and are a fraction of the cost. If you
have already built a sizable community, you can tap the expertise and views
within that group to get feedback on a topic.
Some suggestions for leveraging what you already have to gain valuable insight:
Talk to your nance and operations departments about the Key Performance
Indicators your company uses already. The systems will already be in
place to track this data and there may be some compelling trends hidden
within them. For example, if you use downloads as a KPI, are there peak
times of year or days of the week for downloads? If so and assuming
you can make some intelligent observations about these trends you
have a potentially valuable source of data for all forms of content marketing,not to mention some essential proof points for PR.
Identify the feedback mechanisms you have, including community
forums, support desks, social channels, customer advisory boards and
newsletter subscribers. Each of these is a potential source of insight and
opinion that can be turned into compelling evidence for your marketing
programs. For example, perhaps youre a consumer electronics manufacturer
and you spot an increase in set-up queries every year on the day after
Black Friday. You might launch an integrated Set-Up Saturday campaign
to attract more customers this year.
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
14/28
ELIMINATE BADEVENT HABITS
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
15/28
15
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
If your company regularly participates in high prole events, conferences or
seminars (or perhaps you are planning to create and host an event of your
own), including a budget for PR and social media activities at these events
will help increase the success of your event. The key is to not be formulaic
in your approach to events. There are more ways to generate visibility at an
event than tchotchkes and press releases.
Dont assume for every event that you will automatically secure a certain
number of media briengs, or a guaranteed number of attendees. Few media
outlets cover events per se anymore so its rare to see reporters churning out
multiple news stories from vendors during a conference. That function is now
provided by social media. Instead, they tend to focus on extrapolating one
or two key themes so your goal should be to be included in some of those
stories. Having some news to announce at the event will help, but be sure to
get the information to your media contacts well in advance. Leverage videos,mobile apps, surveys and Twitter streams before, during and after the event
to maximize effectiveness. Train your event attendees and prepare them to be
ready to engage with journalists and attendees with key messages that tie in
to your overall promotion. Amplify your content through event-specic landing
pages and Twitter streams. Live social media engagement (including
live Tweeting, videos and Q&As) will increase the reach of your event.
Here are additional, proven event marketing ideas leveraging social media
and PR that get results:
Print small cards with a QR code and distribute to attendees at the
door. Have them scan the code on their phone. The resulting landing
page can promote your event, your product or encourage the visitor to
stop by your booth for a chance to win a small prize.
Set-up a Foursquare account at your event and encourage visitors to check-
in. Publish content on Foursquare and offer discounts or contests at specictimes during the event when attendees check-in with your company.
Consider creating a small mobile app or widget for attendees to download
on their mobile device. The app can point to your own company event
page, where they can receive exclusive offers, discounts, information or
opportunities to win prizes for participating in the event.
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
16/28
CHOOSE YOURREPORTING AND
MONITORINGTOOLS WISELY
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
17/28
17
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
While there are several great tools out there that can really dive into very
detailed analysis of your marketing efforts, a large investment in these
tools is not always mandatory. Using what you already have in place in
your organization or leveraging many free tools (such as Google Analytics)
can help you uncover opportunities to inject content or interact with new
audiences. Simply setting up Google Alerts can help identify relevant
topics or opportunities to react to items that your competitors are currently
engaging in. The key is having a plan in place and using what you do have
so that you can act on the data you capture.
Its also worth considering limiting the number of metrics you actually
track, and instead focusing on those metrics that effectively drive or impact
your business. Companies often ood their reports by tracking unnecessary
metrics that have little impact on business outcomes. For example, measuring
how many new followers you have on your companys Twitter or Facebookpage may look impressive, but the true measurement of success is how
those followers are actually engaging with your company. A more effective
approach is to try and simplify your reporting into areas that are meaningful.
Some good questions to ask yourself are:
Am I effectively measuring and capturing new customers?
Do I know they are real customers (because they have actually purchased
from me) or are they still prospects or simply passive visitors?
What else can I do to turn these visitors/prospects to customers, and
am I measuring the effectiveness of those activities?
Once they are customers, am I measuring how I am deepening our
relationship? At the same time, am I monitoring and responding to
any servicing issues that will ensure I do continue to deepen customer
relationships?
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
18/28
ENSURE YOURWEB SITE ISNT
LEAKING LEADS
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
19/28
19
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
You know the scenario: The current website has been around for several
years. Pages are added frequently, many different authors contribute
content and the whole experience is starting to creep slightly off-brand.
Its a common problem, as few companies ever budget to make periodic
refreshes to their existing web properties.
Having a budget item to audit and refresh your website can be extremely
benecial. A website audit will uncover areas where navigation and site links
may be broken, where content is stale or off-brand or where there are current
opportunities (such as links to new social channels) that are currently overlooked.
Some of these challenges may be technical and may need to involve your IT
team or a vendor. But it is worthwhile to review your website periodically and
x any technical issues. Review the content on your website and if there are
gaps that are obvious, a budget should be set aside to create new content.
In many instances, even enhancing blog content can be an effective solution
in updating your site if adding new page templates is cumbersome.
Some common website tweaks that are often over-looked, and yet could
yield rich results in your lead generation efforts include:
Simplify the number of elds a prospect has to enter in order to nd
out more information. All you really need is name, company, email and
phone number anything more may feel too intrusive and scare your
prospects away.
Alternatively, consider util izing Facebook Connect as a single sign-on
for your users.
Make sure your home page (and all key pages) has visible calls to
action only one-click away. Dont make it difcult for your visitors to
contact you at any point during their stay on your website.
Ensure your social channels are all fully connected and linked, and that
buttons identifying them are clearly visible on your home page. Validate that your back-end tracking system is accurately capturing
and tracking leads. Omniture, Google Analytics, Salesforce whichever
system you are using, periodically audit it to make sure leads are
accurately tracked and data is effectively mined.
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
20/28
GET SMARTABOUT SEO
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
21/28
21
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
Studies have demonstrated that a majority of major purchases (especially
in B2B procurement cycles) begin with an online search in many cases,
as high as 80 per cent of purchase decisions begin on a search engine.
In addition, visitors tend to place greater importance on natural search
results versus paid search ads, based on the fact that Google, Yahoo and
Bing are valuing companies enough to place them so high on the page one
results for that search term.
Yet many companies treat their organic search engine optimization effortsas an after-thought or assume search results will happen naturally without
having to place dedicated resources or effort behind it.
If your company is in such a predicament, planning for SEO can be one of
the most effective marketing strategies you undertake. If you are currently
utilizing SEO tactics as part of your marketing spend, it may be worthwhile
to set aside additional budgets to:
Audit your web site for broken links and x on-page technical SEO issues
Begin a link-building outreach plan to increase your SEO rankings with
third-parties
Improve your overall SEO by integrating existing or new social channels
and blogs into your SEO mix
Update your keyword list to ensure your site is optimized for any changes
or trends within your company or industry
If you can only focus on a limited number of items, the simplest and fastest
way to improve your SEO results should be:
Develop a keyword list of high-performing keywords relative to your
business that you want to rank for. Incorporate these into your web site
structure and content in a natural way (never keyword stuff!).
Create content that is valuable to your audience and create and x
page titles, ensuring they are consistent. Try to capture as many quality inbound links to your site as you can
and ensure links are working correctly.
Fix your URL structure and make sure you are consistent with the URL
structure across all your pages.
Publish content frequently. Keep your site fresh and keep it growing. If
your site structure does not easily enable creating additional pages of
content, then leverage your blog to its fullest extent.
Time it is your greatest ally, and the longer your site has been around, the
greater emphasis Google will place on it as a site of trust and authority.
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
22/28
START A SOCIALADVERTISING
PROGRAM
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
23/28
23
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
You may already have had success using paid search ads on Google and
Bing, but have you considered alternative paid advertising opportunities?
Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook all offer advertising capabilities
that, depending on who your target audience is, could become a prime
source for new leads if executed effectively. Social advertising can be an
easy (and often necessary) way to drive trafc and a base of active followers
on a social channel.
Display ads were once denigrated as being no better than invasive pop-
up ads, but the choices today for effective display advertising are quite
diverse and effective. Many display ad networks allow for site and social
retargeting which provide for an even greater network of possible targets
and a higher return-on-investment. Display advertising and social advertising
programs can also be extended onto the mobile platform, so that when
prospects are utilizing mobile search or mobile social channels, serving a
relative and insightful ad for your company at that time may yield successful
results.
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
24/28
MAKE YOURMARKETING TRULY
GLOBAL
White Paper 10 Pro en Wa s to Stretch o r Marketing B dget
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
25/28
25
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
If your company has a global presence, make sure your marketing allocation for
global efforts is really serving your needs. For instance, targeting Europe
is not the same or as effective as targeting the specic countries withinEurope you want to reach. A realistic approach that takes into account
geographic and language nuances within each country is far more effective
than blanket marketing campaigns that blast content that may not be relevant
from country to country.
Experience also proves that having one global agency support you in
your global marketing efforts is far more efcient than trying to manage
multiple agencies in every individual market. By partnering with a single
global agency, you have access to country-specic expertise and content
strategies that will resonate in their markets. Some of the ways to ensure
this approach is delivering efciencies include: centralized reporting, true
collaboration at the strategy-setting stage and ensuring you have local
spokespeople and materials before embarking on an international investment.
White Paper 10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
26/28
26
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
CONCLUSION
Planning your marketing spend can be a juggling act especially today,when the range of available tactics is so great. But, whatever your mix of
tactics, certain elements need to be prioritized, such as strong PR and
marketing content, a well-optimized website and effective monitoring
and measurement. These basics will form a foundation for all your other
marketing programs, ensuring a higher return overall.
White Paper 10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
27/28
27
White Paper10 Proven Ways to Stretch your Marketing Budget
Contact us
Websites: www.lewispr.com
www.lewispulse.com
Blog: http://blog.lewispr.com
Email: [email protected]
For additional resources or more information about our services, please
subscribe to our newsletter or contact the LEWIS team via the website.
Copyright LEWIS Communications. 2012 all rights reserved.
About us
LEWIS was founded in 1995 by a former journalist and, since then, it has grown to over 300 employees
based in 24 wholly-owned ofces across the US, EMEA and Asia Pacic.
Its regional headquarters are in London, San Francisco and Singapore. LEWIS is known for delivering
bold digital communications campaigns that enhance revenue, value and reputation for global brands.
Digital communications services span PR and media relations, social media marketing, search engine
optimization and digital content production.
-
8/12/2019 2013 Budget White Paper
28/28