B2B marketers need to budget more than just dollars and cents
By Linda Forrest
Francis kicked off the launch of this blog by listing to some of the more common objections made by technology companies about why they’re not investing in marketing. One of these straw man arguments, an all-too-common refrain, is a lack of budget. From that first post:
“Lack of budget is the next most common excuse for not engaging in marketing. This one has more legitimacy but it also betrays a failure by marketers. If we can’t get the funds we need to do the job we believe needs to be done, it’s because we have failed to adequately plot the line between cause and effect, between marketing outflow and revenue income. What rational person would decline to invest a second and third dollar into a marketing program that has proven that the first dollar actually produced the revenue we said it would?”
We’ve long said that marketing is an investment, rather than a cost centre, and that’s absolutely the case. A business that views marketing merely as an expenditure rather than a tool to increase market share and revenue is doomed to failure. Marketing requires investment of money, time and resources to be successful. To borrow a line from a Canadian bank’s advertising campaign, “you’re richer than you think” when it comes to having “budget” for marketing. And here’s why.
