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Opinion: The key to maximising your marketing budget post-COVID

Opinion: The key to maximising your marketing budget post-COVID

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In 2020, we learned a lot about what it means to have a modern, agile marketing strategy. The improvisation phase is over, and it is now time to take longer-term decisions that will affect our marketing activities in the years to come.

The global impact of COVID has left many leaders asking if they have the right processes, technology and strategies in place that truly allow for flexible yet impactful content and communications. At the same time, CFOs are demanding results, cutting budgets and demanding more financially efficient decisions. As a result, brands are streamlining their approach, some are focusing on key products, and others are looking to take control of resources by creating a better balance of centralised creative with budget-efficient localisation.

But even after considering efficient content and media plans, marketers are still asking: How realistic is it nowadays to deliver those creative campaigns in an unpredictable landscape and economy and how can I have the c-suite supporting my efforts?

With the right production strategy, it is still possible to deliver impactful creative, despite the fact that we are operating in an unpredictable landscape and economy. In fact, as marketers begin to prepare their content, media and budget plans for 2021, they are looking to production strategy as the key enabler of creating and distributing efficient, effective and consistent content. How are you justifying and maximising your marketing spend?

A production strategy powered by technology will enable creativity and marketing efficiencies while clearly driving results and accountability from every single part of your marketing investment. Here are three ways you can leverage production technology to make the most of your marketing budget in 2021:

  1. Tech powered production delivers scale efficiently – Automation, DCO, cloud-based tools that allow for speedy review and approval of adaptions, all of these can deliver cost savings and allow you to maximise your marketing budget. Production technology means there is no need to sacrifice authenticity and personalisation when it comes to distributing centralised creative content around the globe. Production technology allows you to create impactful content at scale, based on data and insights.

  2. Strategic production enables brand centralisation – A single production ecosystem provides brand control, ensures quality and consistency. It allows you to make decisions about what campaigns are launched and what messages you are sharing globally and regionally. Production technology can be used to create a single cloud-based ecosystem that connects briefing through to creation, storage and deployment, and gives you one comprehensive look at all of your production. This comprehensive view means you can streamline your marketing assets, content and budget. A cloud-based production ecosystem gives the control you need to be future-proofed and make decisions at a moment’s notice.

  3. Leverage production data and insights to make sure you are investing in the right places – Look to build a production reporting tool that will allow you to see what assets your markets are or are not using, and how they are performing. By collecting this usage data and integrating it into your content plans you can maximise your investments as you go. On the fly you can change your content strategy by channel or audience to make sure you are only investing in what works for your brand. This production and asset usage data is an excellent compliment to media performance insights. When production, usage and performance data are combined it is easy to make informed decisions about how to use your budget to drive results.

Content has an incredibly powerful role whether consumers are spending time at home on screen or returning to “normal” life and venturing into retail environments. Content is the one consistent factor, and whether it is selling, entertaining or informing, our content has the opportunity to help play a meaningful role in people’s lives.

It's time to reinvent your marketing approach with a solid production strategy at its core. Brands with agile making strategies and content management approaches will maintain brand awareness and campaigns even under challenging circumstances. 

Production is where the conversation between the consumer and your brand is created and enabled, and in an unstable world, it is imperative that this connection remains as strong as ever.

The author of this article is Melissa Chan, MD, Craft APAC.

Related articles:
Opinion: How smart production balances budgets and consistency
SG Budget 2020: 4 key takeaways for the digital economy
Analysis: Indonesia's US$24bn pandemic recovery fund to minimally impact agencies

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