Don’t become invisible when cutting costs

Loud, consistent, differentiating and focused – each attribute is an essential elent of marketing, which is needed to establish and maintain a presence in today’s challenging business environment. Sadly, the practice of constraining budgets is contributing to a loss of visibility for an increasing number of businesses, brand names, products and services – including the optical market.This loss of visibility reduces the effectiveness of a business’ marketing and promotional content. Ironically, some small business owners don’t recognise that brand names and value propositions are improbable when existing and prospective patients don’t recognise the practice.Decisions to cut overheads, starting with wages and advertising expenses, can be decisive but too often little consideration is given to the consequences.This scenario is compounded by a marketplace awash with businesses applying their comparably-limited budgets to the promotion of like-products and services, each with similar features, benefits and advantages – it’s a boring landscape of sameness.{{quote-A:R-W:450-Q: Understanding the media habits and information sources of customers enables priorities to be assigned and marketing channels to be utilised. }}Standing out is difficult when a practice is limiting resources. Commoditisation, in which each or all offerings are perceived to be part of a non-differentiated amorphous block, exacerbates invisibility, best defined as a non-conspicuous presence in the marketplace. Accordingly, effective marketing sometimes becomes unattainable.Cuts in advertising can eliminate brand names, products and services from the minds of consumers, making businesses invisible. Stop-start advertising affects recall, awareness, preference and, above all, cash flow. In the absence of consistent advertising, a customer’s top-of-mind recall rate can be negligible.Also, an over-reliance on a single communication channel can multiply the consequences of any reduction in advertising expenditure – social media and online advertising should be therefore included into any marketing plan as both are effective among consumers who are seeking specific or targeted information.Budget consequencesAchieving impact on a limited budget is difficult but not impossible. That is, a laser-tight focus on activities can affect relative visibility, hurt impact and lessen differentiation.Discrete target audiences can be identified, analysed and targeted. Understanding the media habits and information sources of primary, secondary and tertiary customer groups enables priorities to be assigned, budgets to be set, funds to be allocated and optimal marketing channels to be utilised.With a constrained or limited budget, impact can be achieved and sustained to high-prospect entities, individuals and groups. Leakage and losses among those in the broader marketplace are therefore minimised and the cost-effectiveness of all promotional campaigns is enhanced.Broadening target markets can and should be achieved with personalised, on-sell propositions to customers who have previously responded positively to targeted communications. On-selling, recommending and referring are different and later phases of the purchase process than advertising and promotions.Converting satisfied patients to referees, advocates and even ambassadors is an art form ployed by high-achieving marketers. This requires a disciplined, structured approach within the construct of relationship marketing.Spheres of influenceCascading sales are not restricted to recommendations made by purchasers. Well-connected spheres of influence present a diverse collective. Their access to – and influence upon – new dographics, psychographics and locations should be tapped.Targeting these spheres of influence will require a dedicated advertising budget and carefully crafted messages. This might come at the expense of existing commercial agreents and require careful financial consideration but marketing mavens, while typically few in number, are influential in many purchase decisions and referrals.Put simply, the marketing and communications initiatives of mavens make selling easier.An external focusThus, once optimal efficiency and cost cutting has been achieved, rewards and competitive advantage await those who strive for external effectiveness.The adroit use and deployment of external resources can leverage sales, revenue, productivity and profitability. Moreover, all mentions by the spheres of influence will help to address any drift towards invisibility and commoditisation.In short, a key objective is to become a topic of conversation and then rain one. Share of mind does inevitably become share of market. This typically requires a relatively stable schedule of marketing, advertising, public relations, promotions and merchandising.Budgets and resources are essential. While this might sound expensive, cutting these budgets and resources can be a lot more expensive, especially when measured in terms of a loss of marketplace visibility, a differentiated market positioning and, in the end, lower sales, lower revenues and lower profits.