Recession Leads to Improvements in Marketing

by lisa ~ August 27, 2009

Aug. 27, 2009 - The recession has taken a dramatic toll on PR and advertising agencies but Freddie Laker, director of digital strategy at business technology consulting firm Sapient, says it’s also fostering positive changes. He enumerates three new marketing tactics which will also impact PR: More creative branding tools; different customer outreach strategies; and new measurement metrics.

He points out examples of companies such as Kraft that are providing tools and information that are aligned with their audiences instead of rolling out spectacular (and expensive) ad campaigns. Such initiatives have worked because they “gave something while asking for little or nothing in return,” he wrote in a column for Advertising Age. “But they’ll ultimately help foster a relationship with the consumer that builds brand value, loyalty and engagement for less money than the cost of repetitive ad campaigns.”

Laker also reinforces that good customer service can be a company’s strongest marketing program. He gives kudos to Comcast and Dell for interacting with consumers via social media.

A recent article on TheStreet.com echoes his assertions. Reporter Lauren Tara LaCapra gave an in-depth account of banks’ use of Twitter. She found that there are definitely conversations taking place internally at financial institutions regarding how best to engage clients online - tactics that are then being put into practice, sometimes in robust ways.

The implication is that companies are looking for more cost-effective and direct ways to reach users. There’s no doubt that Twitter is cheaper - not to mention more environmentally friendly - than dropping 25 million direct mail pieces to upscale metro area households nationwide.

Ultimately, Laker writes that “digital marketing is finally adopting meaningful metrics that we can equate back to real business value.” Measuring the impact of marketing dollars is crucial so the means being used have grown increasing sophisticated. It’s moved beyond “eyeballs,” or web site traffic, to include hundreds or possibly thousands of data points.

Lisa Tibbitts  is a corporate communications professional with an MBA in marketing. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FinancialPR.

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