Scarcity Breeds Industry: Where Should You Be Putting Your Marketing Dollars in 2009?

 While Your Competitors Are Hunkering Down, It's Time to Step It Up 

Marketing budgets and resources are becoming scarce and the industrious are going to thrive. In Part 2 of a series on marketing in a challenging economy, experts from Be Greeted, Aviso Communications and Conversion Scientist team up again to offer their recommendations for thriving in depleted marketing waters. If you missed Part 1 of the series, you can read it here: "Five Ways to Gain a Competitive Advantage—While Everyone Else Is Panicking."

Tune Your Touchpoints 

If you're like most of us, you probably are dealing with a marketing budget that has been frozen or cut; you probably have a smaller team to deal with; you may even be dealing with some radical changes in your company's product mix. If you are not experiencing any of this, congratulations! You will be taking business from your competitors who are cutting back in 2009. 

However, if you are dealing with a contraction of resources, it's time to sharpen your blades. Scarcity breeds industry—and we're going to talk about being industrious marketers in 2009. 

Learn from the Group 

This is the second part in a series on thriving in depleted marketing waters. We don't claim to have all of the answers. We need your experiences and input. By taking the time to share your ideas, you make a bold pronouncement to yourself and your team. While your competitors are hunkering down, you're stepping it up. Visit the Facebook group, Web Strategies for Business, and join the discussion about how to step up your marketing in a challenging economy: http://budurl.com/egn2 

Finding Your Touchpoints 

In 2009, industrious marketers will be driving prospects to touchpoints. Brand and image marketing, which can be out of touch with consumers' view of their world and is difficult to measure, will be de-emphasized for more measurable lead- and revenue-generating programs. 

Where are your touchpoints? If you're hosting a Webinar, your registration landing page is the touchpoint that drives participation. If you're putting on a conference, the person answering the phone is the touchpoint that drives attendance. If you're selling something on the Web, your shopping cart is the touchpoint that helps visitors buy. If you're engaging visitors with live proactive online chat, your chat invitation is your touchpoint. 

When you optimize your touchpoints, you effectively optimize your entire marketing portfolio. When your prospects look at your business, and they like what they see, they can't help themselves; they have to touch you. They have to touch you to buy. They have to touch you to get more information. They have to touch you when there is a problem. 

Touchpoints Are Funnel Points 

Touchpoints are important because they are a funnel point for multiple marketing efforts. Your e-newsletter, search ads, SEO and PR all drive visitors to key touchpoints. If your touchpoints are effective, all of these other programs become more profitable. This is one marketing "knob" that you can use to turn up all of your marketing efforts. 

How many successful paid search programs are being canceled right now because the touchpoints failed to entice action from the visitors? If the paid search traffic isn't biting, what does that say about all of the other marketing programs driving people to that touchpoint? Your competitors are canceling their programs for the wrong reasons. Are you? 

Touchpoints Can't Be Hidden 

The first mistake we often make with our touchpoints is we hide them. 2009 is no time to be demure. If the e-mail you send promoting your Webinar is just a link, consider a big red button. If your phone number is hidden on your "Contact Us" page, consider putting it at the top of every page on the site. 

Basically, you must advertise on your own properties. How do visitors to your home page know that you're offering a coupon through the mail? How do attendees to your Webinar know that you offer a free report on the same topic? How do your seminar registrants know that they can receive a newsletter? 

You have to tell them clearly and loudly. Think big buttons, colorful ads and informed phone agents. 

Create Measurable Touchpoints 

Don't mess with anything you can't measure. A print ad is not a touchpoint because you never really know how many leads or sales it generates. A press release is not a touchpoint no matter how many magazines pick it up. PR can be measured through Google Analytics as a referral site so that you can ensure that good SEO practices are followed by your PR firm. Your phone is a touchpoint, but it is often difficult to get call data from your telecenter or sales staff. 

Nothing is more measurable than the Web. Drive as much as you can to your Web site, including your "offline" programs. Place a unique URL in your print ads and direct mailers to drive readers to measurable touchpoints, offering something such as: Get your free white paper at http://www.bulldogsolutions.com/oms2009/ 

If, on the other hand, the phone is your touchpoint, assign a different number to each channel. Your Web pages should display a unique number. Your print ads should have a unique number. This way AT&T is sending you an analytics report each time they send you a phone bill. You just have to figure out how to get the bill from Accounting. 

With this kind of touchpoint information, you will know when you're doing a better job of turning prospects into leads and customers. 

Test Your Way to Touchpoint Genius 

There is a level of touchpoint genius that few of us will ever achieve. It is earned by a program of disciplined testing, testing that tells us exactly what works and what doesn't. Testing isn't hard, especially with the Web. However, it requires patience and discipline, and 2009 is going to be a time of change and upheaval for many of us. If you can put a testing program in place and let it thrive, it will reveal to you secrets that no focus group ever could. 

By the end of 2009, while your competition is still trying to figure out where their customers went, you will know exactly how to get the best result from any marketing program. Your touchpoints will make the most of every visitor, every reader, every caller. When your touchpoints work, your prospects don’t move on to your competition. 
 

Look for part 3 next month! 
2009 is not a time to stop experimenting. 

You just have to turn up the failure rate until you find what works. 

In the next issue of Marketing Watchdog Journal, Aviso Communications, Be Greeted and The Conversion Scientist team up again to offer Part 3 of the series, "Fail Fast." They'll review the benefits of experimentation with e-mail, chat, paid search, and social marketing.