Sometimes it’s better to save your money than spend too little
Published on 11/11/2002 under Budgeting
The expression, “you get what you pay for,” has no better application than the undisciplined and largely subjective field of business-to-business advertising.
Open any trade magazine and you’ll see what I mean: Drab photos originally taken for technical bulletins doing double duty as hopelessly overmatched attention-getters; endless lists of bullet points (probably written by the engineering department) substituting for benefit-rich selling copy; no incentive for prospective customers to ask for additional information and certainly no help in simplifying their stressful lives by making the buying process easier.
Six years ago (3/11/96) I wrote a column for this publication taking advertisers to task for producing too much “lazy advertising.” I questioned how any company could afford to run inane, invisible advertising (actually, I referred to them as ads created by high school art students on Quaaludes).
Now I ‘m confident the Quaalude-popping art student could produce ads that actually stand out from the pack. Because I’m not sure the “lazy” tag applies anymore -- I think cost-cutting is driving most decisions these days.
Any manager who thinks the way to achieve the best results in B2B advertising is by squeezing production budgets to the lowest possible level is missing the point entirely. It’s like fishing with dough balls because they just happen to be inexpensive. Some fish will bite on dough balls, but most will not. (I happen to know this for a fact, due to the many hours spent this summer on the river bank with my grandchildren.)
Your costs in getting to the fishing hole will be the same. The costs for fishing gear will be the same. The amount of time you spend in the boat will be the same. The only thing that will not be the same is your results!
Unfortunately, we’re dealing with a powerful mindset here. Driving out unnecessary costs is the basis for most quality improvement programs, and has been for more than a decade. Why wouldn’t it be productive to drive out unnecessary costs in advertising, too?
The answer has two parts:
1. The first part is because most business people don’t know a good marcom expense from a bad one. They don’t know if $15,000 for a cutaway or diaphanous illustration that shows the inner workings of their product is worth the money. They can’t imagine how spending $250,000 for a tradeshow promotion could be reasonable and proper. And why would you approve 4-color spreads when black and white fractional page ads have always been used in the past?
I wish there were fact books you could look these things up in, but unfortunately marcom people guard budget numbers the way a mama bear guards her cubs. If you try to get too close, you’ll quickly understand the meaning of fear.
The only solution to this part of the problem is hands-on experience. Once you’ve been to a tradeshow where your main competitor was the talk of the show, while your guys cowered behind the same tired booth you used the past three years, only then can you appreciate the penalty of spending too little.
2. The second part of the solution is where art comes in. Advertising is persuasion. You can’t persuade someone to select your product or service by boring them to death. You can’t expect them to look at a product shot and magically see the difference your product can make in their plant. And you can’t bury the key benefit in a list of copy points and expect them to find it. They’ve already turned the page.
Successful communication in today’s business-to-business world requires a lot of thought. It takes you down many possible avenues and most of these are dead ends. You need to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and try to decide which appeal will be most effective. It’s necessary to think about the customer’s buying process, and about getting your brand to the next phase of that process.
Most good advertising practitioners go through hundreds of possible concepts to get a handful that might do the job. It both amuses and annoys me when clients sit in a conference room for 20 minutes and brainstorm creative ideas. Not that these sessions can’t be useful, but my experience is that brainstorming generally turns up only embryonic possibilities that must be massaged into greatness or cast aside later in favor of superior concepts.
The point is that good ideas take lots of time. You go through many bad ones to find a few good ones. You can’t cut corners on this process, and you have to use talented, experienced people who are capable of finding gems in the mountain of gravel.
I’ll throw out one more suggestion for getting the best value in advertising services. Tell your creative group what you’d like to spend. I know, that sounds like showing your hole card to your poker opponent, but it’s not.
When you go shopping for a new house, the first question the realtor asks is, “How much did you want to spend?” They’re not going to waste time showing you houses that are out of your price range.
Advertising services work the same way. If I’m producing a project for a new client, I will do everything I can to determine up front how much the client wants to spend. If the client has no earthly idea how much is necessary, they are usually too embarrassed to admit it.
They will say something like, “We’re open to your recommendation,” which doesn’t mean the sky’s the limit. It probably means “be gentle, we’re new at this.” But it’s okay to say you don’t know, just don’t leave it there. Keep talking until you arrive at a target budget that is acceptable. You’ll be amazed how often this produces results that are pleasing to both parties.
Spending the right amount on marcom activities is one of our most important and difficult tasks. And the risk of spending too little is just as great as the risk of spending too much.