The CMO Council estimates that only 15% of all companies plan to increase their marketing budget this year. At the same time, 21% of companies plan to scale back their marketing budgets. The reason is obviously the troubled economy, and a hypercompetitive business environment where companies are hard-pressed to generate more revenue.
While it is tempting to scale back on core marketing functions such as lead sourcing and nurturing, this would only contribute to a downward spiral. Less marketing efforts would lead to less sales, which would add pressure to the margins even more and result in an even lower marketing budget.
So how do marketers get out of this rut?
The obvious solution is to try and do more with less, and the answer lies in innovation. For example, marketers could:
• Spread the net far and wide. Nurture all leads, those that come from repeat customers, marketing and sales, referrals and up-sells rather than just focusing only on leads that come in through the traditional marketing funnel.
• Adopt the 80/20 rule to lead nurturing. Since 80% of the sales invariably come from 20% of customers, replicate the lead nurturing methodology that brought in the top 20% customers across the board.
Marketers have to depart from conventional methods and adopt a lifecycle marketing automation solution that covers a more proactive strategy. This whitepaper explains how exactly to go about doing it, prompting marketers to ponder five crucial questions that explains the state of marketing, and provides a roadmap for what needs to be done.
