Times have been tough, resources were cut. However, now we are formally out of the recession, what have we learnt? Maxine-Laurie Marshall reports
The recession, the downturn, the credit crunch, the worst time to be in marketing. However you like to refer to the period of time between 2008-2012 when the banks lost all our money, your working behaviour would have had to change during it. Marketing budgets were cut and marketing teams were downsized. Thankfully the recession is behind us. Despite this, its effects remain. So what has the B2B marketing industry learnt from it?
A lesson marketers had to get to grips with quickly was how to do more with less. Budgets were cut but expectations were raised. B2B marketers were under pressure to ensure their campaigns, run on streamlined budgets, outperformed expectations. And true to form, B2B marketers didn’t disappoint.
Budgets
Powwownow won best limited budget campaign at the 2010 B2B Awards while the country was knee deep in the recession. Its ‘Flypowwownow’ campaign saw it go toe to toe with larger brands like British Airways and Flybe as it aimed to raise awareness of its conference calling services.
However, now marketers have proven they can operate on a tight budget, will they see reluctance from executives to increase the budget? This question was met with a resounding ‘no’ from industry experts.
Speaking about Powwownow’s activity today, marketing director, Robert Gorby reveals it’s still executing some campaigns on a small budget: “We run a number of smaller tactical campaigns within Powwownow alongside our higher profile outdoor brand building activity, which prove to be very successful. We recently ran a very simple email campaign with a powerful offer targeting decision makers in larger SMBs. While the actual prospect wins was relatively low, the value of these wins equated to a week’s worth of registrations from some of our more traditional long running programmes.”
Gorby continues: “I would expect to see marketing budgets rise. The recession has forced marketers to become stronger at proving ROI of their activity and as a result of this, businesses are realising the benefit of investing in marketing. I believe marketers should now push to have their marketing budgets tied to total revenue so that as they drive growth in revenue, marketing budgets will grow proportionately.”
Technology
Perran Moon, marketing director at Decision Insight Information Group, feels the switch to digital that happened alongside the recession also gives way for increased marketing budgets. “As many budgets are handled by finance officers, often cynical about the value of marketing, the opportunities to prove ROI provided by measuring the digital footprint from digital marketing, mean that in future marketers should have a much stronger case when asking for increased budgets,” says Moon.
Gorby and Moon are right, during the recession marketers had to learn how to prove ROI, while it still hasn’t been perfected, marketers are far more conscious of this requirement. And the rise of digital techniques and technologies has made this easier. This has also meant marketing is now more scientific than it has ever been.
Jon Myers, VP and MD EMEA at Marin Software, says: “As marketing teams become more digitally focused, technology takes an increasingly important role post-recession.”
Agency relationships
The B2B agency sector wasn’t immune to the effects of the recession either. Mark Stringer, MD at Ahoy, noticed restricted budgets affecting the agency a brand selects. He notes: “I have seen bigger brands working with smaller agencies, particularly across North West England.” He believes the recession was more beneficial for smaller independent agencies because they could afford to be more agile and have a small inhouse team but use freelancers whenever necessary. However, seeing a positive outcome for large and small agencies alike, he says: “As budgets increase, brands may switch back to using larger agencies again. As a result, the smaller agencies that have grown over the last five-six years will be in an evolved position to really do well in the upturn.”
Agencies also had to develop a new working relationship with clients. They had to anticipate changes to how marketers were working and ensure they were flexible enough to adapt. Mike Welsh, CEO of Publicis Chemistry, says agencies had to become good at providing more for less: “Greater collaboration at the front end with clients should help agencies get more stuff right the first time. Agencies have got operationally smarter having restructured themselves, getting rid of the silos.
“Agencies are adopting an agile way of working and not waiting until an idea is perfect before trying it. Rather, agencies are getting things out more quickly, and then seeing what happens.”
Staff
As well as affecting client-side use of agencies, budget cuts during the recession inevitably affected staffing. Many teams were downsized and marketing didn’t escape the redundancy axe. However, some feel this has potentially had a positive impact on marketing. Gorby says: “Smaller teams has meant individual marketers have had to engage and interact with a much wider internal team (e.g. sales, customer services, senior management etc), which results in more people getting to see and understand what individual marketers do and their benefit to the business.”
It’s pretty well documented now that marketing needs to have a more open relationship with sales, the technology officer and even HR. Perhaps fostering these relationships was made easier because marketing had to become more visible internally during the recession. However, does this mean marketing teams are destined to stay small?
Once again the general consensus was no, although it was noted that marketers will be more considered with their hiring decisions. Steve Grout, CEO at Tangent Snowball, says: “Clients are more adept at seeing where they are getting their returns, and so will invest in these areas. I think hiring will be more ‘scientific’, rather than reduced.” Moon echoes the thought marketers will change the way they hire when he says: “In future, demand for digital marketers will increase as the requirement for marcomms generalists decreases. The future of marketing is very much driven by engaging customers and prospects through understanding their digital footprint. Skills involving data analytics, SEO, PPC, mobile and tablet, web and app design will be key to most B2B marketing teams.”
So it seems the changes that happened due to budgets cuts in the recession are not irreversible. B2B marketers are not destined to spend their days in small, understaffed teams with no budget. However, they are expected to have learnt from the recession and to carry those lessons forward. As budgets slowly begin to look healthier and teams begin to grow, marketers will be expected to demonstrate even greater results. If you do well when the odds are stacked against you, then you should soar when they’re in your favour. So, no pressure.
