How to stop brand becoming a sacrificial lamb?
Why it doesn’t make commercial sense to stop brand building activity when times are tough.
Your budget has been slashed. Everyone has been told to double-down on sales, and you are being challenged to demonstrate ROI on every penny spent. The pressure builds to rein-in the brand-building activity and refocus on direct marketing. Here’s why you’d be right to push back.
1. Brand is an economic moat
‘A truly great business must have an enduring ‘moat’ that protects excellent returns on invested capital.’
Warren Buffet
Today, successful product and service innovations are quickly copied. Strong brand recognition is a competitive advantage, fundamental to protecting your market share and profitability.
As Warren Buffet said, A successful business needs a formidable barrier, like a powerful brand to protect it from challengers.
2. Brand reputation is a super power, it opens doors
Without brand recognition everything is harder and more resource intensive than it needs to be.
Without a strong brand it takes longer to cut through, requires greater explanation about what you do, diverts valuable resource, becomes harder to protect your margins.
Cutting brand investment is cutting corners, which ultimately costs more.
Who would you open a message from - Neil Neverheardof or Betty Brandleader?
3. Keeping your brand activity turned on, keeps your customers tuned in.
Don’t ignore the 95-5 rule. “95% of your potential buyers aren’t ready to buy today…but they will be “in-market” sometime in the future.”
The B2B Institute, LinkedIn
Data capture and analytics make it easier for businesses to accurately target customers as they prepare to make a purchase. As tempting as it might be to focus purely on direct to consumer marketing, and switch-off mass market campaigns you should not.
When people are ready to buy they look to brands they are already familiar with, and trust, which is why it absolutely makes commercial sense to maintain reputation-building activity the 95% of the time your target audience isn’t in purchase-mode.
This is especially true in tough economic times, where trust becomes even more important.
4. A strong brand builds confidence, and confidence is contagious.
A strong brand has the power to raise awareness, build customer loyalty, attract investment, empower talent, stimulate innovation, protect your margins, experiment in new markets and accelerate growth.
There is a reason no one ever says, ‘we need a weaker brand’.*
*unless they are brand consultants who would absolutely love the challenge to turn it around.
When your back is up against the wall you really don’t want to weaken its foundations.
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