Battling for branding budget
July 10th, 2006 | Melissa MarronRecently, I presented best practices for integrated marketing at a dinner with several colleagues. In attendance were marketing professionals from small to large IT companies. We highlighted the importance of integration and specifically highlighted the importance of having a “sticky brand” when generating leads and demand.
We have research that showcases high awareness equates to a greater purchase intention. But brand awareness is of utmost importance in busy markets, like IT security, where there are several vendors and many products. However, when we discussed branding with these marketing pros, the overall opinion was that while it is necessary, marketers have a hard time getting their execs to fully embrace it because the marketers are not sure of how to prove ROI on it. Consequently, it’s a small piece of the marketing budget.
Is this your experience as well?
July 11th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Great topic. Thanks for bringing it up. Any ad in any medium can help build a brand. It’s a shame so many marketers grew up believing “brand-building” ads and “direct response” ads were mutually exclusive.
July 19th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
If anything, the brand building initatives will ultimately increase the response rates of the direct response.
July 19th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
You can advertise, event market, direct mail, webinar and research all you want. The key to a powerful brand is user expierience. If you work for Coke it’s all about brand. If you work for a 100MM maker of widgets you need to deliver a full pipeleine to your sales team. Brand is wonderful and it’s easy to say but talking about branding without differentiating where your company sits in the big picture could be costly.
Build your base before you build your brand. Educated account managers, well defined product specifications, effective in house communication tools, well defined new product development programs that integrate VOC (voice of customer) and powerful user allies will benefit you and your company a great deal more than worrying about calculating ROI on brand.
Don’t battle for branding budget. Battle for new product development money. Now, I just know that someone is bound to answer this with a metric that ties brand awareness to one of a hundred financial metrics. Let me answer you in advance. Intel has the greatest brand in the world…
July 20th, 2006 at 1:30 am
Agree fully on this. Specifically if the focus is on global markets, the importance of branding is even more significant and these programs even more difficult to implement due to higher investments needed!
ROI ???
July 27th, 2006 at 8:15 am
This is a great discussion and I think John hit the mark with his post. What we need to consider is that branding efforts are more than simply magazine ads, online ads, and other advertising efforts. They are all good but one cannot forget the best marketing message always comes from the employees of the company itself. It doesn’t matter what your positioning is if when talking to a sales rep the customer gets a completely different point of view.
Educating the sales force, customer service staff and other departments on how to communicate (conveying the company values, the product differentials, etc.) is the best bet for brand building and awareness.
When discussing budget and ROI for branding, I think it’s important we bring this other aspect to the table.