Back Away from the Budget

Back Away from the Budget

Small businesses are consistently challenged with how to best market products and services in a world where they always feel the big guys can outspend them and out brand them. Truth be told every brand—even the biggest ones (even McDonald’s)—cries the blues that it doesn’t have enough money. It’s true. You could always do a better job, reach more people and make a richer connection if only the budget was bigger.

Rewire your thinking. Forget about budget (at least initially) and focus on objectives. What do you want to achieve? Who do you want to reach? What message do you want to get across? Focus on these three questions:

• Where are you now?
• Where are you going?
• How are you going to get there?

It’s way more fun and productive to think about strategic direction than it is to fret about budget. If you can answer these questions in a really robust way, the budget demon can wait until you’ve got a plan and message strategy in place.
First, take an inventory of where you are now. What’s the status of your brand? Is it new? Is it known? Is it ready for the big time? What about your team? Do you have the players in place inhouse and externally to help drive a vision of what your product or service can be and on what timing?

What’s your mission? What’s your goal? Do you simply want to reach more people? Do you want to generate buzz? Are you looking to build great traction, brand loyalty and brand ambassadors?

Here are the steps you need to take to land on marketing direction that can then be actualized at virtually any budget you can afford. These steps require sweat equity, not money. Be smart about your process and no matter what budget you have in place, it will work harder for you.

• Where are you now?
  • What’s your brand vision?
  • What’s you brand mission?
  • Positioning: Who are you and what makes your brand unique?
  • Who’s the competition?
  • What’s your product line? Why is it right? Why will it be competitive?
• Where are you going?
  • Perform your SWOT. Analyze strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in a meaningful way, identifying implications and actions as an outcome of the exercise
  • Drill down on the opportunities.
  • Analyze what your brand capabilities are and assess its limitations. What do you have “permission” in the marketplace to do? What directions might be a stretch or misguided?
• How are you going to get there?
  • What’s the big idea? What’s your singleminded and meaningful message?
  • Who is your market? Target carefully and precisely. Fish where the fi sh are.
  • Create a toolbox. In a perfect world, what complement of communication tools would you like to employ
  • Who is your dream team inside and out?
  • Who are the players who can help you best meet your mission?

Now, and only now, should you confront your budget! The strategy behind all of these steps is to manage by inspiration rather than insecurity. True, the budget will never be as big as you wish it could be. But, the better you understand your brand, its mission and capabilities, its audience and message, the better you will be able for focus on being effective in branding on a budget.

Mass marketing ain’t what it used to be.

One-to-one efforts and brand ambassadors can carry tremendous weight and credibility for budget challenged brands.
The bottom line for driving bottom line is doing the tough but inspiring marketing work. Then, harness the power of smart and affordable communication platforms to meet your marketing mission. Creative and sweat equity can build brand equity and help grow your agency.

Paul Kurnit is CEO of PS Insights (www.insights.com) and a marketing professor at Pace University. He is the author of The Little Blue Book of Marketing: Build a Killer Plan in Less Than a Day

Where the Customers Are

Never before have there been so many variables and vehicles to compete in the marketplace. Brands are made on word-of-mouth every day. Traditional media continue to be expensive. But the online world has opened all kinds of new targeted communication opportunities. Consider what you can accomplish:

• on your Web site
• with banner ads on like-minded, perhaps more highly visible and visited sites
• with a program and presence in social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter or foursquare)
• in place-based marketing and grassroots events
• with sampling
  —P.K.