Abstract
- More money, more pressure. Marketers are facing budget challenges despite increased investment and need innovative strategies.
- Get approval. Prioritizing key business metrics can help you gain leadership support for larger budgets.
- Drive efficiency. Martech with a solid data foundation improves efficiency and improves ROI.
Despite the still challenging economic climate, UK marketers have reason to be optimistic. According to the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising's (IPA) Quarterly Bellwether Report, companies increased their marketing investments last quarter, with 26% reporting an increase in their marketing budgets.
However, marketing teams are still under pressure. The IPA report doesn't reveal how much companies have increased their marketing budgets, but based on a Plinc survey of 200 senior customer marketers, it's still not enough.
Our research reveals that the most salient concern for all senior customer marketing professionals remains 'Can we prove the value of customer marketing to protect and grow budgets?' They report that this is more important than their ability to understand and respond to customer behavior.
This situation not only limits the capabilities of marketing teams; It also has a negative impact on business growth. According to 68% of companies that participated in the same study, the resources and funding available to departments is preventing them from supporting business growth. Additionally, more time spent on reporting to justify budget allocations can impact customer experience, as less time can be spent focusing on the customer.
So despite last year's budget increases, now is not the time for marketers to rest on their laurels and think their budgets are safe. Marketers need to rediscover innovative ways to make the most of their existing budgets and protect and grow their investments in the coming year and beyond. Here are my three suggestions for how to make that happen.
Related article: Really? What half of your marketing budget is wasted?
Marketing budget tip 1: Prioritize key business metrics
The main reason marketing teams suffer from budget shortfalls is a lack of interest from the leadership team. Our research shows that 4 out of 10 senior marketing professionals believe senior leaders don't value, frown upon, or are disinterested in customer marketing. Therefore, it is important for your marketing team to get approval to increase your budget.
The best way to do this is to focus on reporting on the metrics that are most important from an overall business perspective. For senior leadership teams, this means drawing relationships between marketing efforts and changes in incremental revenue.
Currently, very few marketing teams are doing this. Our research reveals that only 26% of marketing teams report increased revenue in line with their campaigns. In some sectors, such as e-commerce and travel, only 20% of marketing teams reported this metric.
Therefore, marketers need to focus their reporting on the KPIs that matter to the business in order to demonstrate the value of their teams and win bigger marketing budgets.
Related article: The one marketing metric that keeps CMOs up at night
Marketing budget tip 2: Drive martech with a solid data foundation
Marketing teams also need to learn how to do more with fewer people, less time, and less money. The only real way to do that is to improve efficiency through innovation. This is why martech is becoming one of the most important elements in today's marketing strategy. This is also why a solid data foundation is more important than ever. That's what makes technology possible.
Simply put, to effectively use martech, companies must integrate, analyze, and validate customer data from a variety of online and offline sources, ideally without increasing the strain on human resources. You need to be able to This can transform struggling marketing teams into powerhouses with real-time omnichannel agility.
Once your marketing team has integrated data and established a solid foundation in martech, you can start thinking about leveraging AI. This helps in many ways, including optimizing and personalizing customer communications. You will also be able to support other teams by predicting customer behavior and suggesting appropriate “next-best actions.”
When budgets are tight, marketing teams won't want to “rip and replace” their existing technology stack. Instead, they prefer to fix their core data foundations to develop a more progressive long-term martech strategy and focus on areas where they can improve the fastest while providing the highest ROI for their business. Probably. This helps enable leadership teams to reach their potential while working with limited resources.
Related article: The definitive checklist for reducing marketing technology sprawl
Marketing budget tip 3: Deliver value to the broader business
As data becomes more important in serving a predominantly online customer base, the responsibilities of customer marketers are also expanding. Marketing teams are often the primary custodians of customer data. And in doing so, they become champions of customer data usage across the enterprise.
Today's marketing teams need to think more about how they can use customer data to help other departments improve their operations. It's no longer just a marketing issue. When data is accessible to all stakeholders, both technical and non-technical, the entire business can make better decisions based on it. As a result, companies must make important decisions about how they collect, store, and analyze data that impacts their broader business.
By doing this, customer marketing teams can prove more value beyond pure marketing efforts. This provides solid evidence of value to present to management when it comes time to fight for the budget.
final thoughts
The news that marketing budgets are once again increasing significantly is good. But evidence shows that this is still not enough.
Rather than buckling under pressure, marketing teams should see this as an opportunity to improve efficiency and set a new direction for the future of their operations. While many inefficiencies remain in the marketing process today, now is the perfect time to straighten it out and optimize your marketing efforts.
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