Your Budget – Marketing
Was reading Business Week the other day and at the end of each magazine, Jack and Suzy Welch give advice to people who write them.
Recently, in one of their responses, they were giving advice on how a manager can manage short-term AND long-term (i.e. get profitable now (short-term) and build for the future (long-term)).
In one of the paragraphs, actually two sentences of the paragraph, they mention how cutting the marketing budget by 20%-50% will drop those moneys right to the bottom line. Which is true.
Through the years, with all the experience that I have in marketing, it always comes down to this – marketing is easy to cut and it affects the bottom line directly.
But, as Jack and Suzy Welch failed to mention for any length or substance, is that LONG-TERM, that budget cut will come back and haunt that company a few short years from now.
First, marketing personnel understand the future (if they don’t, they shouldn’t be in marketing). They know that the “laying of the ground work” now will yield positive results in the future. That, by cutting the budget, that ground work will have to be done at a later date, which, in turn, means that it will take the much longer for the reward to be realized.
Secondly, the success of future products are relient on today’s marketing. So many times, when meeting with analysts, I started the prep work for a future product; which, of course, peaked their curiosity as well as brought them “on board” for future follow-up (i.e. endorsement of the product).
And lastly, if you work for a company that cuts its marketing budget, start seriously consider about staying there. Of course, if they company is going bankrupt, and this is the only way to save it, it has to be done (but, I have heard this before where NO budgets, anywhere else, were cut). If the CEO and CFO are so short-sighted (i.e. long-term profitability) that they are willing to cut the budget without seriously considering the consequences long term (and the only way to know this is to schedule a meeting, pitch your case for “why” and “how” this will affect the companies future), it may be time for you to move on.
In closing, my point is, when you see a company, it its first budget crunching time, decide to cut marketing’s budget, think about why this is being done. Through the years (and I believe I mentioned this in a previous post), there are two types of companies, sales companies and marketing companies. There are a FEW companies that walk the line between these two very well – like Google, Microsoft, etc. And yes, they have the money to make it happen, but, most companies fall into one or the other of the categories.
When taking a job, ASK them what they think they are, and why they think that. It may help you understand the culture that much better.
