Currently, companies are under increased pressure to enhance their performance as the uncertain future of the economy is characterized by inflation and interest rate hikes. Businesses are adjusting their strategies to navigate the current economic conditions.
The latest research from Warc, “The Future of Strategy 2023”, based on an analysis of data from nearly 1,000 strategic marketing consultants, shows that customer spending is being curtailed due to the challenging economic environment. Consumers are more cautious and hesitant because their optimism is declining.
As the most successful campaigns of recent times have shown, the solution lies in creativity. At APPLE TREE, it’s clear that good creativity sells, builds brands, and helps improve business results. It’s a simple equation requiring courageous leaders committed to ideas that challenge the status quo and connect with people. Ultimately, advertisers want to see their business grow. “The origin of commercial communication has no other purpose than to help companies to sell more, to achieve their business results”, Jaime Lobera, Partner and Chief Strategy Officer of APPLE TREE, recently stated in a column for El Debate.
It is evident that now is not the time to double down on marketing and communication efforts; it is quite the opposite. However, a recent study by the Spanish Marketing Association reveals that 41% of CEOs plan to maintain their marketing investments. In comparison, 28% would increase them, compared to just 31% who would consider cutting back in a time of crisis. This suggests there’s room for optimism even amidst the economic turbulence.
Marketers are becoming increasingly sought-after by CEOs as businesses prioritise business growth. As a result, marketers are in a position of power as long as they can prove their value to the organisations; if they can demonstrate their ability to drive business growth, they will remain in high demand.
“In the digital era we live in, the industry has become even more focused on measuring each of the phases that the individual consumer or customer goes through in deciding to purchase a product or service,” explains Jaime Lobera. “Today, we can measure all of these phases: how many individuals are impacted by campaigns, how awareness is created of a product or service and its brand, its consideration for the customer’s set of possible options, when the actual sale takes place, and its subsequent level of recommendation and repeat business. We can know how many customers we lose in each of these phases or levels of the purchase funnel and, most importantly, how to act to recover them and improve our conversion rates in each of them. In this way, we can know very precisely the acquisition cost of each customer, their value throughout their life cycle, and, therefore, the return on each of the investments made in communication. We are in the era of precision marketing, where almost everything can be measured, tested, improved, and optimised.”
