Several
years ago I had to really struggle breaking in a new client. The
struggle was over the budget. For most campaigns there are two basic
types of costs. The first are creative costs. These are costs to create
the campaign elements and include, research strategy, positioning, art
direction, photography, illustration, copywriting etc. The second are
the costs to produce and place the campaign elements and include
printing, postage, bandwidth and media placement expenses.
My new client was use to allocating 90% of his budget for production
and placement costs. Leaving 10% for all creation activities. The
struggle was generated by my allocation of a 50/50 split between
creative and production/placement dollars. More specifically I was
budgeting for a significantly higher expenditure for competitive
analysis and message creation.Also, I knew that we could reduce his
overall budget by better targeting prospects and by switching to a
direct mail emphasis from his current trade ad bias.
The big numbers for the his campaign were $250,000 for a nine month
campaign split 50/50 between creation and placement. The client had
budgeted $300,000 for the campaign and the fact that I was saving him
$50,000 off the top was lost on him. The only thing he could focus on
was the fees he was paying for what he characterized as non-productive
costs for research, strategy, positioning, etc.
Most businesses today still feel the way my client did – which is
dollars spent on research, strategy and positioning are wasted dollars.
Most large agencies reinforce this notion by giving away for free their
research, strategy and creative via the traditional account review
process – which is also one of the reasons why most campaigns fail. I
was able to convince the client that research and strategy were the
drivers of any campaigning effort. And with better intell we could
immediately and materially reduce his campaign budget while
significantly increasing the effectiveness of each dollar spent.
Maneuver marketing allows the astute practitioner to dramaticallyimpact
their sales and marketing effectiveness. For many campaigns we have
reduced marketing budgets on average 20%, and have increased revenue
50% – over an 18 month time frame. Here’s a rough rule of thumb you can
use in order to frame a maneuver campaign. Take your existing budget
and cut it 20% – then allocate your remaining dollars on an equal basis
to creation and production/placement categories. In other words every
dollar you spend on media should be backed by another dollar for
research, strategy, positioning and creation. Maneuver theory can
decrease your marketing budget while significantly increasing revenue.
Why? Because each dollar is targeted and accountable. The cornerstone
of maneuver theory is competitive analysis.
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