A new paradigm is emerging in marketing today. A paradigm that enables enhanced revenue and reduced expenses.
In general, marketing’s objectives are pretty simple:
- Grow revenue
- Grow profit
- Grow brand value
- Enhance shareholder equity
Once you have established those objectives, however, it gets complex. You need to develop the “how” in order to successfully reach them. Many companies spend too much money attempting to succeed at this, primarily because the great majority of the budget is dedicated to short-term activation and sales goals.
Simply put, if today you are spending your marketing budget primarily to reach short-term objectives such as energy efficiency targets or HVAC sales targets, you are missing the opportunity to reach your overall business objectives. That is like only doing a week-long juice cleanse to reach your health goals, versus enrolling in a holistic wellness program.
While short-term activation tactics can lead to success, that game plan requires a large share of the budget to be focused on:
- Price reductions
- Promotions
- Quick activations
This is the game plan for many companies. A game plan that might lead to revenue growth—but at the expense of profit, brand value and shareholder equity.
The opportunity going forward is to move marketing into an investment focused on attention value, audience value and monetization over time.
Just think about it. Which brands have greater value today: Ford or Tesla, P&G or Amazon? Ford and P&G by and large are stuck in the past and unable to run fast enough to recapture their leadership.
And although you may not be able to become an Amazon or Tesla overnight, you can begin to shift your marketing so that you increase your revenue, profit and brand value over time.
It is a new world, and advertising is not solely the answer. Nor is building a one-way customer purchase path—there is no straight line from prospect to customer. Never has been, never will be.
We all know that the future is digital, but today most utilities are using digital only as a channel tactic, pushing the same old advertising and pursuing short-term objectives, at the expense of long-term objectives. Shift the focus and start to think of digital marketing as a business model.
The fastest-growing segment of the digital landscape is subscriptions. The ordinary things of life are now on autopilot. So if you are in the business of selling toothpaste, feminine products, batteries, etc., your business model is being turned upside down.
The successful marketing models of today and tomorrow are being built through true value to the customer. And the energy world is like the Wild West. While Tesla, Nest and Schneider Electric are building value-based brands, most energy services companies are not. This needs to change, and change fast, or we will be buying our energy services and products through Google, Facebook and companies not yet started.
This year, take that advertising budget that you have and put 20 percent to work toward building value for your prospect and customer. Next year, double that part of your budget. In the third year, you will be able to decrease your marketing expenses while increasing your revenue.
Heading to sunny San Antonio for #AESP2019 next week? Be sure to say hello to Harrison, our Director of Strategic Partnerships!