It’s too soon to tell whether the economic hallmark of 2008 is recession or fear of one. In either case, reducing expenses remains a top priority and, chances are, marketing is the first stop on the cutback express. The wisdom of scaling back marketing in an uncertain economy is worthy of another discussion --

-- (for instance, conventional wisdom is that companies need to boost marketing budgets, not reduce them, in tough times).

Yet cost-cutting decisions may be out of your hands. In that case you’ll have to do more with even fewer resources. And you’ll be under greater pressure to maximize your time and justify your decisions to impatient senior management.

Online marketing campaigns – including email, Web blasts and banner ads – can become flagship strategies when budgets shrink. These low-cost, high-impact strategies pull a lot of weight in any marketing plan, because they let marketers see results in real time and make adjustments on the fly.

But just because it’s cheaper doesn’t mean Web marketing gets a free pass. In a down economy, there’s greater pressure to ensure you’re spending your (possibly) shrinking budget on the right projects. And it’s even more important to back up your reasoning with accurate analysis.

Apples, oranges, head and guts

If you’re really optimizing online marketing, you’re using all of the tools at your disposal. For example, you’re supporting SEO with Google ads and supporting Google ads with blogs, and supporting blogs with third-party distribution of white papers. When budgets are tight, it’s even more important to understand how well each tool is pulling its weight, prove the results and re-allocate resources with accuracy.

With your head of marketing pressuring you to prove ROI right now, you may be tempted to use your guts, rather than your head, to make decisions. It takes a bit of time to determine, for example, the ROI for Google AdWords versus the email blast versus the banner ad. You may have to ask your department’s PPC expert to pull up the reporting dashboard to show metrics and analytics. You might depend on the Web guru to tell you how many people visited which pages and from which sources. Then you’ll need to learn how many emails deployed, and how many subscribers opened and clicked through.

Assuming you can access all of that data quickly, you’ll need to make sense of it. But slicing and dicing data from several sources is like comparing apples and oranges. It can be done, but accuracy may take a hit. You may be tempted to take a shortcut, say, by finding one key takeaway and then using your instinct to make a decision. But when your head of marketing has a closer eye on the bottom line, it becomes even more important to back up those decisions with sound and reliable information.

Pulling it together

We marketing types are generally right-brain creatures anyway, so relying on gut instinct is second nature. That may work in boom times when the powers that be aren’t as concerned with cutting corners. But in a down economy, it must be crystal clear how every cent of the marketing budget is working toward boosting the bottom line, and it’s up to you to do the justifying.

When it comes to the trials and tribulations of analyzing marketing data, I’ve been there. Making the data work for you requires a way for disparate data sources – Word documents, spreadsheets, reports from your various marketing point applications – to “talk” to each other.

With an integrated platform like Lyris HQ™, the time-consuming chores of gathering information and comparing apples-to-oranges data is already done. And by showing all of your important metrics in one place, it takes some of the guesswork out of determining which campaigns have generated the highest ROI, and why. You not only save time, but also have greater confidence that your decisions are based on sound data and appropriate analysis. And you can back up your gut instincts about where to best utilize your marketing spend with cold, hard facts.

By ensuring that Web-based marketing campaigns really do lead to greater revenue, we can help budget-cutters view the marketing department as a truly mission-critical asset rather than a liability ripe for the chopping block. But we already knew that, didn’t we?

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About The Author

Cathi O'Sullivan is director of marketing programs for Lyris. Her team is responsible for executing programs that delivery quality leads to the sales team.

Related Resources:

• Subscribe to Inside Lyris HQ our monthly online-marketing newsletter.
• Download free online-marketing guides, tools and webinars in the Lyris Online-Marketing Resource Center.

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