September 17, 2009

Making Marketing Smarter Amidst the Cuts: Five tough questions rigorously guide how best to reduce and reallocate budgets in difficult times

This article is written by Fred Geyer, Partner, Prophet, and Chiaki Nishino, Partner, Prophet. The troubled economy is forcing corporate leaders to re-evaluate their spending plans across the board and marketing is not exempt. In fact, marketing is often first in line for cuts as corporate leaders attempt to identify immediate cost reductions that may take longer to achieve in other areas. In reducing marketing budgets, corporate leaders face a difficult set of choices: to trade off long-term brand building or is it damaging our ability to drive revenue in the current period? Making these choices is particularly difficult if the marketing team lacks a systematic method of measuring the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing spending and a proven method to link marketing spending to business outcomes. In this economy, budget cuts may well be necessary to survive.