The Investment Paradox

We all know how it goes with economic uncertainty: consumer confidence declines, businesses reassess their priorities, and ultimately marketing budgets get the chop. Cutting costs while you wait for markets to stabilise - makes sense, right?

Actually, the research says the opposite. A McKinsey study, cheerily titled ‘Preparing for the next downturn’, found that the top-performing companies during and after the 2000-01 downturn were those which kept investing in marketing, balancing short-term profitability with long-term gain. 

The same happened in the 2008-09 recession, when Tesco expanded aggressively whilst competitors scaled back, and more recently with discount retailers Aldi and Lidl who used economic uncertainty to grab significant UK market share.

Ultimately, brands that don’t invest end up missing opportunities, losing customers, recovering slower, and seeing long-term damage to their brand equity. To put it another way: survival mode isn’t a strategy – it’s a stall. So, where and how do you invest in your marketing?

How to Win

At Canto, we like to think we know our stuff when it comes to marketing tech – with over 4,000 businesses relying on our platform we must be doing something right! And we’ve identified the three key marketing areas that successful organisations invest in during uncertain times.

Firstly, invest in marketing tech that drives operational efficiency and ROI. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘do more with less’, well, why not get the technology to do more for you, instead of the poor intern burning a hole in their keyboard? 

Using a digital asset management (DAM) platform is a really effective way to streamline workflows and improve productivity across your teams. Put simply, a DAM platform is an intelligent, centralised library for all your content and assets – from images and videos to brochures and publications – which is boosted by AI-powered search and smart tagging features. In fact, brands which use a DAM solution see an 80% increase in content ROI, compared to 63% of non-DAM users.

Secondly, invest in technology which builds your brand. Like McKinsey found, a strong, consistent brand is one of the most valuable assets your business can have during volatile times. But with so many channels and customer touchpoints, it’s easy for brands to get misaligned. 

Again, a DAM solution has some of the answers. By acting as the single source of truth for all your brand’s logos, templates, and other assets, it enables you to present your best self in any channel and at any time. A platform like this also comes with built-in version control, easily-customised permissions and expiry settings – and all the other tools your business needs to woo and win customers.

Finally, invest in technology which accelerates your time to market. Being reactive is more important than ever when consumer trends move fast, but many businesses end up with bottlenecks during content production and delayed product launches, all of which impacts on the bottom line.

As you might have guessed, there’s some marketing technology to help with that too. Not only does a DAM platform speed up content production, but it also enables faster routes to market through branded self-service Portals for internal teams, sales reps, partners and franchisees – ensuring they only use approved assets.

Are You Ready for Volatile Times?

In essence, just because times are uncertain, it doesn’t mean your business should shy away from bold decisions. Businesses looking to make their marketing more efficient, consistent and impactful, could benefit in the long-run introducing a DAM system. It might just be the investment to give you the competitive edge.

Canto is the world leader in digital asset management (DAM), now with the power of product information management (PIM) to help organisations manage their entire product lifecycle. Download the free ebook on How marketing technology helps you win during volatile times.