Businesses that have dedicated marketing budgets, used to spend more on brand marketing. Today, a majority of these budgets are turning to performance marketing. Reason, their increasingly bottom-line conscious strategies that are demanding maximum returns on every penny spent. And why not? See what happened to Nokia. In-spite of all it’s branding, it couldn’t stop competitors from striking it out of the market. And then there are many such examples of brands like Kingfisher Airlines, that was one of the best in the industry. And Enron, the energy giant revered in marketing and advertising circuits. What happened to these billion dollar brands? Certainly, big budget brand marketing didn’t help when competitors came with better products and services. And then the many socio-economic factors that every business is challenged with. And this is affecting SMB marketing strategies.
From all these fallen stories, there are a couple of big learnings for all of us –
- Irrespective of a business’ strengths, or it’s marketing budgets, there is a lot of opportunity for smart and agile challengers.
- To keep growing, every business must keep investing in performance marketing to reach and win new customer audiences.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 50% businesses fail by their 5th yr and 80% by their 10th yr – Performance marketing can certainly help some of them survive the anxiety and stress.
How Competition Is Driving SMB Marketing
A few years ago, businesses could have a 5-year business plan. Today, when I talk to CXOs, I hear even 2-year projections can go haywire. Market dynamics are changing so fast that its hard for companies to plan long term. There seem to be just so many opportunities and so many competitive forces, that planning anything beyond a year may seem a long shot. Here, SMBs are turning to performance marketing agency services. A competitive digital marketing plan that enables SMBs to keep growing without fear of loosing money to wasteful advertising.
Integrated marketing increases funnel performance that ensures better productivity.
Why Wait For Competition To Be The Challenger
I have heard many business owners say that their customer base is safe. It’s either because they have got infrastructure that is a huge entry barrier for competition. Or they have intellectual property that competition cannot access. But competition may not be in form of another product or service at a lower price. It might be out of nowhere, like a solution that makes a particular product or solution irrelevant. Competition in today’s net connected economies can be from anywhere. See what I mean here?
- Case I: eStores making Retailers obsolete
- Case II: Tablets Are Making Waiters Obsolete
- Case III: Cloud technology is making physical offices obsolete
- Case IV: Tech is making car theft obsolete
- Case V: Gadgets making computers obsolete
- Case VI: Electric cars may make diesel engines obsolete
- Case VII: Smartphones have made digi-cams obsolete
- Case VIII: Mobile money will make Credit Cards obsolete
- Case IX: E-readers making books obsolete may not be far
How can your business protect itself from such dynamic market changes? One is adapting fast. The other thing to do is to reach target buyers constantly and building close relationships with current customers.
Everyone has potential to reach their skies – With right skills, technique, momentum and effective force.
Performance Based Marketing For SMBs
Businesses that continue to use the same marketing methodologies in reaching their target audiences will disappear. Not that such methodologies are anywhere lacking, it’s just that customers have simply moved to new media. To networks that run on electronic devices and where promotional messaging can be very closely measured to know it’s impact. So SMBs are now turning to videos, blogs, display ads, and social media among other forms of digital marketing. But there’s now an option – SMBs can now pay for marketing agency services after getting actual results, that is a percentage of sales to keep growing results.
About three-in-ten U.S. adults say they are ‘almost constantly’ online
Pew Research
How to know if performance marketing is right for you?
Of course, there are exceptions to every situation – but if your business is experiencing any of the following situations, a performance marketing strategy can always generate desired results.
- Declining sales and losses;
- Disclosures by client businesses of mounting hurdles;
- Rising costs that are unlikely to be recouped through higher prices;
- Erstwhile competitors who are now no more;
- Competitors who are likely to file for bankruptcy;
- Competitors who are said to have lost the great majority of their customers; and
- Operations with withering market share.
There are a 100 more things that you might want to know more; clarify more doubts, evaluate more ideas and brainstorm more strategies. And what could be a better way than to have an exclusive online meeting with the experts?
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