Stop the clock to save time

In recent years, marketing budgets have been cut substantially. It started during the debt crisis in 2008 and 2009, when companies made massive redundancies and were forced to cut costs wherever they could - most often in marketing.

As the economy recovered, marketing was the last to go and advertising budgets were more than shyly increased, but in some places company managements still kept a wary eye on the situation and tried to delay investing in marketing as much as possible.

But as Henry Ford said, "Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping a clock to save time."

Well, the uncertain times of the last two years, with the closure of certain industries and the departure of a large number of employees, have cut into marketing again - except in companies that have previously digitised most of their business or moved most, if not all, of their sales online. These companies have thrived even during the total closure, expanding their online sales and digital marketing departments and adjusting (i.e. increasing) their marketing budgets in parallel.

In many companies, however, the marketing and sales departments are the "worst enemies", because the former squander what the latter earn, while at the same time the former invest so that the latter can make money. Because nothing is nothing, or as another wise man said, "To make money you have to spend it".

And now we come to the heart of the matter - what is the key role of a communication agency.

Companies that are unable (or rather, unwilling) to invest in marketing, and those that employ in-house creatives and marketers, often see agencies as an unnecessary expense. The former don't really know what they are missing out on, while the latter don't fully exploit the marketing potential - because an agency, as an intermediary between the brand and the media (be it TV, radio, print, digital channels or the online community), can achieve much better and more effective exposure for its clients than the brand would on its own. The agency brings a number of brands to the medium and achieves what these same companies would call a volume discount. But this is only one side of the cooperation story.

At the same time, the agency has a dedicated team with a range of expertise, from content and format creators to communication and media strategists and project managers, so it can effectively build a tailor-made project team or complement the existing team of employees working on marketing activities in-house. The result is, of course, a better and more integrated communication campaign.

This is the only way to deliver advertising, promotional and media projects to a high creative and cost-effective standard, reaching your target audience exactly where they are and exactly when it makes the most sense.

So, if you are thinking of waiting a little longer to start marketing, think again. If you want to get serious about it but don't know how yet, then contact us and we'll be happy to give you concrete suggestions and tips to launch your brand to the stars.