Cimply is dedicated to assisting companies in addressing marketing challenges across their entire operations. We’ve observed executives and teams encountering various internal obstacles when attempting to align with new goals and objectives. Introducing resistance to the pace of business can significantly impede rapid adaptation and make it challenging to determine the next steps.
As Benjamin Franklin wisely noted, ‘Beware of the little expenses. A small leak will sink great ships.’ As the cost of capital increases incrementally, so do all your expenses. During market downturns, companies often hastily implement widespread cost-cutting measures. While this might seem instinctual, if it leaves you ill-prepared, it can be costly when cost management is most crucial.
We prefer to adopt a derivative approach. Occasionally, when we analyze a situation, project, or idea from a different angle, we discover hidden opportunities for leverage that may not be evident when you’re ‘staying the course.’ As external consultants, we can delve deeper, ask unconventional questions, and meticulously identify ways to make the most impact with minimal friction.
When money becomes expensive, it is more important than ever to be deliberate and surgical with the shifts you put in motion. After all, resources can be reallocated much more easily than they can be removed, retrained, and rehired. Working from within to without is a great way to find untapped value if you know what to look for.
In times of rising costs, it becomes increasingly critical to be purposeful and precise when implementing changes. Remember, reallocating resources is typically more manageable than eliminating, retraining, or rehiring them. Working inside to out in an organization is an effective approach to uncover untapped value, provided you know where to focus.
People are much more likely to be impulsive when they are caught off-guard. We fall back on instinct and rush to solutions. Yet time and again we see that changing directions without a plan and situational awareness is the number one reason we see wasted resources.
In this article we talk about some of the key areas where we see hidden costs associated with marketing and communication objectives. These are framed around two principles:
1) We firmly believe that downturns present the most cost-effective opportunities to expand market share
2) Planning and resource allocation can be better leveraged through clear goals, objectives, and communication
The principles below are some observations we’ve collected. Consider how any or all of these might be influencing your team’s performance.
1. Misaligned Goals and Objectives
“The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.” – Benjamin E. Mays
In the realm of marketing and business, there is often a misalignment between the two. CEOs typically hail from the business side, while CMOs often come from the agency world. Agencies emphasize soft metrics and client services, whereas business operations are built on hard metrics and profit margins. This inherent disconnect frequently gives rise to confusion and conflicting objectives. These conflicting goals at the executive level inevitably trickle down and affect the teams responsible for running the business.
We frequently observe agencies grappling with the challenge of conveying their success stories to clients. Client managers, on the other hand, struggle to bridge the gap with their senior leadership, and senior leaders find it challenging to present clear results to their peers. While operations and marketing differ in numerous aspects, one fundamental fact often gets lost in the shuffle: both are inherently customer-centric. Establishing alignment at the top becomes attainable when you can identify common ground between Objectives and Key Performance Indicators (OKRs and KPIs). This takes time, effort, and ongoing communication, both vertically and across departments. When everyone shares the same language and goals, meaningful conversations become considerably easier and collaborating happens naturally.
2. Saving Money in the Wrong Places
“Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.” – Warren Buffett
Many organizations seek outside assistance to handle specialized tasks. Agency leadership often characterizes marketing as a commoditized service, but it should instead be seen as a skilled trade. If you think about it, there are accountants everywhere, but there are better accountants. When good work saves or makes you money, the hourly rate is no longer the key barometer of a success.
However, most companies typically approach these issues by focusing on rate savings and media cost reductions. The challenge with such approaches is that they prioritize “more-for-less” without adequately addressing the aspect of quality. Rate savings can easily become misaligned with a business’s overarching goals, and this is a common occurrence. Even when there are evident gaps in methodology, such practices remain central to many agency contracts, especially within the domain of prominent brands. It’s worth considering the hypothetical question: What is the value of a 10% savings if it is 20% less effective?
Effective saving strategies are rooted in minimizing waste rather than merely reducing costs. This distinction, albeit subtle, offers the potential for long-term value and entails a deeper and more strategic exploration of the issue. Reframing the perspective to focus on success rather than avoiding failure paves the way for new and innovative ideas.
3. Unclear Expectations
“The art of communication is the language of leadership.” – James Humes
When it comes to launching campaigns, establishing measurement structures, or crafting creative content, disparities often arise between how agencies approach problem-solving and how brands articulate their requirements. The challenges, however, are not limited to just one side or the other.
Agencies operate as service providers, constantly navigating the varying definitions of success presented by multiple vendors. They must also cater to the ever-evolving preferences of their clients. They balance time with money because “people are their product”. Furthermore, despite their expertise, they don’t always secure the best talent in the most specialized areas of their business. It is always a game of “good enough”. In the realm of service-based industries, client satisfaction frequently carries as much weight as successful delivery. In essence, traditional marketing agencies tend to be more executional than strategic.
In contrast, brands are rooted in reputation built on the trust and relationships they foster between consumers and their products. Marketing is not what brands “do”, but rather a necessary cost of doing business. Brands are also inherently protective, often guarding their trade secrets. They may not always proactively share information, and translating their business objectives into marketing goals often requires extensive planning and support, leading to ambiguity in expectations.
While businesses may have a clear understanding of what they desire, they don’t always possess the insights to identify the right levers to pull. Additionally, agencies often find themselves at a disadvantage by not being involved in discussions early enough to contribute substantially influence on the conversation. In situations where a small margin can determine success or failure, the ability to pose the right questions, employ effective frameworks, and align objectives can work wonders in achieving the precise outcome sought: efficient growth.
4. Moving Goalposts
“If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.” –Lawrence J. Peter – Ideas of Our Time, 1977, p 125
It is all too easy to set objectives and then move the goalposts mid-stream, or even worse, at the end of a campaign. Companies often find all kinds of reasons to change KPIs in “post”. You would not believe how often a campaign targets “Reach” in planning and brand managers ask about “Sales” after it ends. Marketing is a portfolio approach which requires coordination and balance. Campaigns are specialized on their own but together build a healthy mix of messaging to your potential customers. You can’t set up a campaign to target one thing and then ask why it failed at getting another. When brands change the goals after the campaign is underway, it creates waste.
Succeeding fast and failing fast. Well planned and well-thought out ideas need to be matched with an appropriate level of conviction for both agencies and brands to be successful. Planning cycles need to be set, objectives need to be fixed and well defined, and campaigns need to be as sophisticated as resources will allow.
5. Reading Metrics Instead of People
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” – Albert Einstein or William Bruce Cameron
While metrics are undoubtedly useful, they have a tendency to merely describe behavior. Brands often grapple with the challenge of deciphering what a metric truly signifies in the real world and find it difficult to relate. This challenge is prevalent throughout organizations.
Our approach is a bit different. We try to remove the abstraction and take a moment to reflect on what the customer is actually “doing” behind the metrics. After all, a “Reaction,” a “click,” or an “add to cart” is just describing specific user behaviors within the broader customer journey. So, if we stop and think about what we are doing when scrolling through content, it becomes far easier to grasp the significance of a “like, share, repost, and comment” for a brand.
Making this leap from numbers to people is not always easy, but it builds a much richer picture of consumer behavior. It nudges brand managers to ponder why a user watching an entire video to completion may hold value down the line, reminding us to consider how we engage with content in our everyday lives. It helps us think about frequency in the context of how often we are interrupted with ads and when we start looking for the mute button. And we can start to consider the value of a “return” and “customer complaint” when we think about how we feel when we buy a meal we don’t like or a shirt with a missing button. In essence, adopting a “human approach” to metrics allows us to scrutinize what we’re investing in and compare it with what we’re ultimately trying to achieve.