How 2009 Taught Us to Do More with Less
2009 was a tumultuous year for the nation. The stock market collapse, mass layoffs, and record unemployment dominated print and the airwaves. Everyone, from families to Fortune 500 corporations, was forced to do more with less and to make savvy choices about spending. Often the first in line for departmental budget cuts, marketing executives at companies big and small were asked to boost the bottom line with less money and fewer staff, all while in the midst of a weak economy where customers were fiercely protecting their cash.
Despite current indicators of a fledgling recovery, the economy remains a salient issue for 2010. Faced with the continued challenge of doing more with less, marketing professionals are bombarded with endless “how to’s,” top ten lists, and advice articles on weathering the economic downturn in trade magazines, newsletters, and blogs. Time and time again, themes emerged from the volumes of marketing tips last year and taught us much about surviving during a lean economy and maximizing resources for long-term success:
Reevaluate your situation
While you may not think you have the time or resources, investing a few precious dollars in market research could pay dividends in the long run. How has the economy affected your clients? What is most important to them now? How can you best serve them? What are the emerging trends in your industry, and how can you put yourselves ahead of the curve? These are the kinds of questions to ask of your organization and your marketing strategy now.
Take into account what is going on in the economy at large. Evaluate your industry to see if there are opportunities or needs that are not being met. Size up your competition and ask what makes your company different. Determine your unique value proposition and investigate if you are using the best messages to communicate it to potential clients.
Focus on getting the most “bang for your buck”
A fortunate outcome of a recession is that it forces us to focus only on those activities that provide the most return on investment. Blogger Leo Babatua of Zen Habits examined this as a method for personal productivity, but his advice can be applied to organizations as well. He says, “Doing less is not about being lazy (though being lazy is a good start) — it’s about focusing on quality rather than quantity.”
For marketers, the tactics for focusing on quality outcomes may differ from organization to organization. For one organization, it may be cold calling – creating better scripts, training your staff to overcome sales call reluctance, or just increasing the volume of calls. Or it may mean revisiting your marketing materials. Are they out of date? Do they truly communicate the value of your product or services? The trick is to identify those activities that are on the critical path toward success for the organization and appropriately aligning your work. As Babatua puts it, “It’s about getting off the hamster wheel of productivity, so that you can create something great rather than just being busy.”
Identify the most important tasks and put your best people on them. Make sure you are tracking progress and measuring results to keep motivated.
Know your brand and be open about it
In 2009, social media climbed up the innovation adoption curve; many traditional marketing departments started experimenting with social media initiatives. Some learned the hard way that jumping into the social media pool muddies traditional theories of brand management. With the popularity of social media growing, companies no longer control the message, and transparency has become the best way to not only control your message, but to defend your company’s brand.
Take the Toyota example. Toyota experienced criticism for failing to deliver a real-time response to customer complaints and concerns after their recall of over 8 million cars. In an article for MarketingWeek.com, Jo Roberts notes that “because Toyota failed to address all its safety issues at once, the story continues to run and run.” Even companies known for innovation and progressive business processes are susceptible to brand damage as a result of ignoring the social sphere in a time of crisis. They tout social media as a marketing strategy, but in a crisis, all the rhetoric about social strategies goes out the window in favor of dated tactics that no longer work in a real-time world – and they are paying dearly for it now. On top of the recent $16.4 million fine from the National Higway Traffic Safety Administration for "knowingly" hiding defects from the agency. Roberts notes that Toyota risks losing nearly $11 billion in brand value.
“The notion that you can manage your brand by making and distributing messages and materials that you want "out there" is becoming quaint, “says Roger Sametz, president and lead strategist of Sametz Blackstone Associates, in an article for MarketingProfs.com. “What you plan and execute from headquarters can be either reinforced or undermined by what you don't plan and execute. Transparency is no longer an elective; anyone can create a brouhaha.”Sametz cites United Airlines’ debacle when a Canadian singer David Caroll made a YouTube video about its mishandling of his guitar. To date, over 8 million users have viewed the video. While United did make a formal public acknowledgement of the incident through traditional channels, they experienced a severe backlash from their lack of a social media response. Dan Greenfield makes the point clearly in the title of his article for Social Media Today “United Airlines Online Public Response to Dave Carroll YouTube Video: 9 Tweets.”
On the other hand, a number of companies had much success in 2009 once they relinquished total control of their message. Starbucks is consistently cited as one of the best large corporations in social media. They started a website called “My Starbucks Idea” which allows users to share their thoughts about what the big chain should do, then vote on the best ones. Some of these ideas actually make it into practice, and Starbucks shares them on the same site. Starbucks is using social media to its advantage rather than becoming its slave by letting customers shape the direction of the company.
The lessons we can take from these social media snafus and success stories are not new. Social media forces you to be completely authentic about brand identity. Embrace the criticism and the channel by which it comes. Always respond using the same format. If your customers are bashing your brand on Twitter, post your company’s response there too.
Most importantly, the old adage still holds true: Honesty is the best policy. Companies (and celebrities, for that matter) that acknowledged slip-ups and apologized for them were forgiven while those who responded with silence or shades of truth were perceived as insincere and were condemned. Evasiveness in the hope that a bad story will just go away does little more than fuel speculation and mistrust.
Engage your customers
Customers may be slow to reward good behavior, but they are quick and vicious in their response to poor services or products. Remember, businesses don’t sell things to businesses; people sell things to people. Especially in this time of thrift, engaging your customers is critical to your success.
The bright side of this is that, today, there are more ways to engage your customers than ever before. Figuring out how to leverage the digital and social media world will be key to connecting with customers and listening to their needs. If you haven’t already, start monitoring online conversations about your brand. There are a number of free and paid products that can help with this such as Techrigy or Radian6. These tools search social media sites for keywords such as your company’s or competitor’s names.
If you find that there is not much being said, take it as an opportunity to start the conversation. Find out what social media tools your clients use. They may not use Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. But they surely use email (yes, it’s a social media tool, and one of the oldest at that). How can you better engage with them through these methods? Update your email distribution list. Start groups on social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and make sure to add new clients as contacts. Join an industry-related group on these sites, and start participating in ongoing discussions about your product or service there.
Another method is to directly implement a client and customer feedback system. Gathering reviews and recommendations from those already using your products or services, both internal and external customers, can help you identify and prioritize ways to improve your company’s products and services and what your clients value most. When interpreting these results, take the next step by focusing not only on what customers say they want, but developing products and services that fulfill needs that clients didn’t even know they had! Client satisfaction data coupled with expert interpretation and brainstorming can help you get there.
These strategies are not unique to the economic events of 2009. The advice may be timeless, but the situation is always changing. Revisiting these time-honored strategies now can help your business and your marketing efforts take off in 2010 and position you for long-term success.
For more information on how you can position your company for long-term success, please contact the author at mkwiatkowski@hillgroupinc.com or visit our website at www.hillgroupinc.com.
Kelley, R. (1998). How To Be a Star at Work. Crown Business Publishers.
Babatua, L. (2009). Zen Habits. 8 Ways Doing Less Can Transform Your Work & Life. Zen Habits. Retrieved December 18, 2009 from the World Wide Web: http://zenhabits.net/2009/09/8-ways-doing-less-can-transform-your-work-life/
Roberts, J. (2010). Bringing Your Brand Back from the Brink. MarketingWeek.com. Retrieved March 19, 2010 from the World Wide Web: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/in-depth-analysis/cover-stories/bringing-your-brand-back-from-the-brink/3011206.article
Sametz, R. (2009). Brand Control to Major Tom: The New Rules of Brand Management. Retrieved December 18, 2009 from the World Wide Web:
https://www.marketingprofs.com/login/join.asp?adref=rdblk&source=%2Farticles%2F2009%2F3247
%2Dcontrol%2Dto%2Dmajor%2Dtom%2Dthe%2Dnew%2Drules%2Dof%2Dbrand%2Dmanagement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo
Greenfield, D. (2009). United Airlines Online Public Response to Dave Carroll YouTube Video: 9 Tweets. SocialMediaToday. Retrieved January 6, 2010 from the World Wide Web:
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/109126
http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/ideaHome
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