Five years ago while working for a large publically traded company, I received a call from head office less than a week before we were about to roll out a significant promotion and marketing initiative. The call went something like this:
“We cut your marketing budget”
“By how much?”
“All of it.”
That was a three hundred thousand dollar phone call. You couldn’t find enough wind on the planet to get my sails working again.
Zero. Gone. Nothing. Numb.
Count The Beans
The Corp needed to cut costs or some other market needed the cash or I didn’t much care at the time. All I knew was that two months of strategy had vaporized with a click of a mouse.
Into The Black Hole
Suddenly the marketing budget was deemed unnecessary, something of a luxury that was slashed to make room for some other priority. When there is no money, there is no money but simply deleting an entire initiative simply to save money isn’t enough of a compelling reason.
Why?
The message must be sharp, the writing must be on target, the money must be spent wisely, the mediums must make sense, the reasons for marketing must be clear and the focus must be intergrated with your overall business strategy.
But if you think marketing is a dispensable item on the general ledger, then leave it out of your budget every year and roll the dice. I wish you luck.
What says you?
@knealemann
Let’s create experiences, not campaigns.
image credit: dpchallenge.com
