Marketers focus more on client needs
Marketing savvy is not the same as it was before the recession. Fierce competition and evolved expectation are making the recipe for turning advertising dollars into sales unique for every business.
Judi Virgulak, president of Jumar Marketing in Norwalk, founded her business two years ago in the middle of the downtick. She said she has built a thriving marketing company by allowing for flexibility. She said that reduced budgets spawned creativity in marketing strategy and hesitation in choosing marketing plans.
“We took our proposals and created two different versions,” Virgulak said. “We created retainer based and then an a la carte so people could pick and choose. Without that option many people would not have committed.”
She said the strategy worked. By making clients feel that they weren”™t going to give away the shop, Jumar was able to help them realize returns.
According to the most recent forecast from marketing and media analysis company AdAge, 70 percent of businesses that decided to invest in advertising realized increased sales so far this year, double that of those who reduced spending.
Marie Jablonski, vice president of marketing at Jumar, said when the marketing translates to sales is when you see confidence return and that confidence becomes reinvested into marketing that produced it.
“When they would see some ROI that”™s when they would justify keeping the strategy in place and doing a little more,” she said.
Jablonski said that in the current climate business owners are much more familiar with what costs them money and why.
“More than anything I think people are being responsible with their marketing budgets more than ever,” said Darryl Ohrt, founder and principal of Humongo in Danbury. “Before there was a lot of waste going on, now it”™s about doing less with fewer people, they want it to be efficient and remarkable and get results.”
Ohrt said because social and online marketing tools achieve those goals, and is a “very measurable medium,” they have been excitedly embraced by many businesses.
Humongo, formerly Plaid, which was bought earlier this year by international advertising company MDC-owned and Norwalk-based Source Marketing and renamed, made its name through an encompassing expertise in social and online media. The company gained recognition as a progressive element in the world of social marketing, which eventually led to its sale to international player Source Marketing, through its yearly road-trip style tour in which staff members pack into a technology ridden van and post, tweet, update and upload the entire experience. The company has just finished its fourth such tour.
“It”™s important not to look at social media as a silo,” Ohrt said. “It has to touch on the other areas of the brand.”
According to the most recent forecast by the online marketing trend analyst eMarketer, advertising spending on social destinations in the U.S. will reach $1.7 billion this year and cross the $2 billion mark in 2011.
Ohrt said with new tools like social media, there is always a bit of craze. Making sure the marketing agency isn”™t just spouting buzz words to a client and actually knows how to leverage the technology is important.
Virgulak said success has started to bolster confidence on a larger scale and even companies who are still very conservative are realizing they need to spend if they”™re going to generate business.
Virgulak said during the recession many businesses practiced a policy of cutting marketing in an attempt to save sales, even though the two departments are typically dependant on one another.
“We saw many people were outsourcing more marketing, we could do that for them as an executor,” she said.
Jumar, which has specialties in online marketing, typically works with small to mid-size businesses on the East Coast.
“Today it is important for a client to recognize what their goals are,” Virgulak said. “It may not make sense that they advertise in magazines. We see more and more people saying ”˜I have a problem, I know I need to be online but I don”™t know in what capacity.”™ ”
Virgulak said many of the new clients that approach Jumar are already online but have branding that is not consistent with their online presence.
“People are reinvesting in their online presence,” she said. “They want to make it work harder for them and not have it blindly sitting out there. It matters that there is consistency; it matters that your webpage can be viewed on your iPhone.”
Virgulak said with so many tools at a marketer”™s disposal its important finding the right mix for them to achieve their goals. She said where as one business might generate clients on a site like LinkedIn for another it might simply be better to use it as a business card.
Jumar has seen the first industry marketing budgets to return are telecommunications and specialty finance.
“These guys are looking for full branding and awareness,” Virgulak said. “Many are businesses that have branched off from a larger shop and know what they need.”
Virgulak said businesses that have built their armor are now beginning to add slightly more money to marketing budgets in attempts to boost their revenue streams.
“A lot of trust was able to be built in the recession,” she said. “That”™s great for the marketers who delivered.”