CMOs are often the first people facing pressure to cut spend in a challenging economy. Marketers need to be able to trim budgets in a way that doesn’t thin out the brand. “A common approach we see during these economic downturns is to cut those upper-funnel tactics…but I really believe this is very shortsighted,” said Laura Brooks, fractional CMO at Made by Nacho, during our recent EMARKETER Summit.
Brooks and other CMOs keep marketing funnels healthy by focusing on low-cost tactics, emphasizing the correct metrics, and aligning with CFOs. Here are four tactics for effective marketing in tough times.
Marketers may be tempted or pressured to cut back on awareness ads in places like connected TV (CTV) that don’t lead to immediate conversions. But eliminating these ads can erode lower funnel tactics’ effectiveness, Brooks said. Those upper-funnel ads are necessary for lower-funnel ads in places like search to work.
There are still cost-cutting efforts marketers can take throughout the funnel. Wellness company Therabody has prioritized spending on branded searches over non-branded ones in places like Amazon. “Once you start to look for Therabody or Theragun, you’re probably not going to get swayed by the competition,” said Therabody CMO John Solomon. Marketers can instead move that money to relevant search terms, like “massage gun” or “deep-tissue massager.”
Marketers determining places to cut costs throughout the funnel can use deprecation studies in smaller markets, turning off certain channels to see how they impact short-term sales, Solomon suggested.
Newer and smaller brands may have less room for flexibility within their marketing budgets and may still have to cut upper-funnel spend during difficult times. These brands must make sure their foundational content is excellent.
Practices like having good product images and thumbnails, SEO-optimized content, and stellar product display pages (PDPs) are low- and no-cost ways smaller brands can grow sales. “Stick with those fundamentals first,” Brooks said.
While marketers need to have data to change campaigns mid-flight, short-term metrics present a few challenges.
First, short-term metrics only communicate a limited picture of marketing results to other parts of the organization, including the financial team. “Those immediate snapshots, the individual data points, can be a bit dangerous,” warned Brandon Rhoten, CMO at GroundTruth. CMOs need more robust data like foot traffic attribution and market share shifts to tell a full story, he said.
Short-term metrics also don’t account for products with longer conversion windows. More expensive products, like Theraguns, require more marketing touches and have a conversion window of 30 to 45 days, Solomon said. Campaigns need to sit for that amount of time or even longer for marketers to see their return on investment.
CFOs are the most likely to be skeptical of marketing’s value at their company, according to Gartner. Reporting metrics and checking in weekly keeps CFOs in the loop on where marketing spend is going and why it’s going there, said Solomon.
Don’t wait to have these conversations with CFOs when faced with challenges, said Rhoten. Make sure everyone understands data while campaigns are in flight and concerns are addressed early.
This was originally featured in the EMARKETER Daily newsletter. For more marketing insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.