The IPA Bellwether Report is a reliable measure of the health of the advertising industry and a good indicator of the situation in the broader marketing world. Right now, it tells us that companies are ramping up their marketing efforts and committing more resources to marketing than at any time in the last eight years.
Clearly, some companies may have allocated the funds to their marketing departments before Russia declared war on Ukraine and before the cost-of-living crisis started to bite. Some purse strings may be pulled tighter as a result of these negative external forces but many will choose to push ahead, sensing the renewed appetite in the UK for growth and success as the fear of COVID finally recedes.
So how should firms spend their newly bolstered marketing budget? What are the activities that will bring the best results? Here are our TOP 3:
1) SEO – SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
No matter the service or product you are trying to sell, being top of the list for companies that sell it will ensure success, especially for e-commerce sites.
If a sale cannot be completed through your website and it needs to be closed, there is always a chance of course that your sales team will blow it. Even if that happens, provided your listing is the first one people see when they search for the product or service you offer, the sales team will have a lot more opportunities to get their pitch right.
2) EMAIL MARKETING
Every successful business uses email marketing and the return on investment (ROI) speaks for itself. According to the DMA Email Benchmarking Report of 2019, return on investment for email marketing was approximately £42 for every £1 spent in 2018. The report is produced every year and the latest issue shows open rates and click-through numbers above their pre-GDPR levels.
As with any activity, results are directly proportionate to effort expended. Cobbling together an audience from untrustworthy sources, and sending that audience messages that are not relevant to its members, will not deliver an ROI. Sending the right message to the right audience is the key to success… and it’s not as hard as it sounds!
3) SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
If your business is going to be taken seriously in 2022 it needs to have a presence on social media. A branded social media account – a presence online that says, “We’re not afraid to put ourselves out there,” – shows a brand to be trustworthy and confident in its offering, service levels, reputation and quality. Social media is a risk, let’s not pretend otherwise.
And for brands the risk is amplified. Customers are extremely unlikely to mention that a product worked as expected because that is by definition unremarkable. The moment a product falls short of its promise, that is when a disgruntled customer will take to Twitter or Facebook to vent.
Managing a company profile on social media requires empathy, a cool head and the ability to communicate in a way that will resonate on both a personal and public level. Think of it as issuing a refund in a large, busy store while standing on a table and shouting through a megaphone.
The fact that managing a social media account for a company is tricky is what makes an online profile such a potent symbol of trust. End users think to themselves, “This company has an up-to-date Twitter account, it clearly has nothing to hide.”
Summary
Marketing budgets are at an eight-year high and confidence in UK business is booming. There is a renewed sense of sunniness after the two or three false dawns of the last two years. The fear of COVID is waning and the likelihood of further pandemic-related restrictions seems to have faded out of view. Marketers and business leaders are no longer hampered by doubt, they are fueled by bullish optimism!
To ensure a newly-increased marketing budget is put to good use, we recommend seeking professional advice or, at the very least, reading through the latest data. The IPA and DMA are good places to start, but if you would rather talk to an agency that is already fully-briefed and has its finger on the pulse, give us a call.