Blog

Get Comfortable With Discomfort: How Marketers Can Make The Most Of Their Budgets

As budgets continue to tighten, marketers are under pressure to justify every pound spent. However, according to senior marketers from Diageo, CALM, AMS, and Salesforce, a culture of experimentation and curiosity can help brands make the most of their budgets.

 

Susan Jones, chief digital officer at Diageo, believes that the best work and most effective marketing come when teams are allowed to feel safe to try new things. She advises marketers to find a way to be comfortable with discomfort and to make their team comfortable with it as well. Jones explains that marketers should use data to understand the reasons why something did or didn’t work and to lean into the possibilities of the data.

 

Matt Jennings, CMO at Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), agrees with Jones’ sentiments about the importance of curiosity and experimentation. He notes that being able to take risks is essential but must be measured so that teams can learn from experiments. CALM has an in-house creative studio that supports its test-and-learn model, which gives the charity increased flexibility and the ability to go after any opportunity as it arises. Jennings has also found in-house models helpful in building a test-and-learn approach that can create insights to make a case for investment in a particular area.

 

Mary Anne Russell, managing director of marketing and sales development at AMS, encourages curiosity in her team around data and newer tools like AI. Salesforce product marketing director Jonathan Beeston advises marketers to use AI to help get the most out of their budgets by identifying insights among the data.

 

Data is crucial for demonstrating to stakeholders that the team is making the most out of its marketing budget and shifting the dial. Russell notes that creating a marketing-generated lead can take anything from 15 to 300 days, so data is absolutely crucial in the business. During a challenging economic time, Russell’s team is set up to be adaptable and pivot away from slower-burn marketing-generated leads towards products that are less hefty to take on board for customers.

 

In challenging economic times, marketers must look across their business. Marketers in this environment have got to be wise about thinking not just about the immediate impact of what they do, but that whole customer experience across the business. Working to reduce incoming calls to a call centre can save the business money, for example.

 

For CALM, agency and media partnerships are a key way it sets about getting more for less. Jennings notes that CALM doesn’t have the media budgets to spend in the way that one might expect given the reach and scale of some of the campaigns that they’ve developed. The charity is lucky to have partners that get behind the work it does, support the campaigns, and give it the reach and awareness needed to create an impact.

 

Bottom Line

 

In conclusion, as budgets continue to tighten, marketers must find ways to make the most of their budgets. This includes fostering a culture of experimentation and curiosity, leaning into data possibilities, and looking across the business to reduce costs. With a test-and-learn approach and the right partnerships, marketers can get more with less and create effective campaigns that resonate with their target audience. For businesses in London, a local SEO agency in London and social media agency in London can help navigate the changing marketing landscape and make the most of available resources. Visit Social Buzzing for more details.