Hold onto your logo, ladies and gentlemen, you’re about to go on a roller coaster of branding, market share and “Google love.” These seven experts know 2009 is the year to go to market. Their agencies are helping clients leave competition behind in their marketing dust. Take that, recession!

Jeanette Bennett, BusinessQ: Why is advertising more important than ever given the current economic conditions?

Bill Brady, M2 Results: A lot of companies in history have taken recessions as an opportunity to pick up market share. For our clients, we’re encouraging them to go after it. We’ve got to get past the doom and gloom.

Judy Copier, Kim Brown & Associates: When you go back and look at every recession dating back to the Great Depression, studies have shown advertisers who have either maintained their advertising or have increased their advertising through recessions have benefited. They’ve grown their market share even though they may not maintain their profit levels. After the recession is when they see the biggest gain.

Brady, M2 Results: During a recession, the marketing landscape becomes a lot quieter. Not only is a brand more easily heard, it can steal attention and business away from weak competitors and gather momentum for brighter times around the corner. History shows that market share gained during a recession is typically never lost, and that market share lost during a recession is rarely made up.

Wes Chapman, LIME: Now is an opportunity, not necessarily a downfall. It’s a time where you can step up. The natural cycle of life is going to weed out those that are weak — and those that are strong will survive and stay in business.

Stephen Hales, Stephen Hales Creative: It’s certainly the cheapest time to build market share because the media is giving great bargains and service.

Lance Black, Eli Kirk: It’s easy for us as agencies to say that you need to spend more money, but the reality is people are scared. The natural tendency for people is to hunker down until the recession is over. History is full of successful companies that have spent money during this time, but it takes a bold personality to take that risk. A great example is Fortune magazine. They launched four months after the stock market crash of 1929. They saw an opportunity and took it. The irony is that the Great Depression caused people to think more about markets and financial systems, so it was a perfect time to launch a financial magazine.

Chapman, LIME: It comes down to education, too. Fear is leading people to hunker down, but the fact is they aren’t educated about these companies that basically took over the market during recessions.

Copier, Kim Brown & Associates: Along with that goes responsible spending. They have to pay the bills, but their profit levels are going down. It’s responsible spending and a deep analysis of everything they’re doing that helps them.

Black, Eli Kirk: A recent case study that took place in the mini-recession of 2001-2003 is Apple. They spent more money on marketing during that time and look at them now.

Bryan Ferre, Cultivate Ideas: It’s incumbent upon us to point out to our clients that the great times they can remember are a result of a past recovery. Recoveries are opportunities for growth. But when we get into the good times we sometimes forget about the bad times and don’t realize the connection there. Every bad time leads to a recovery. It’s our responsibility to show our clients where we are at in the cycle and how we get out. Every business today should be helping their customers save money and time and helping make the fear go away. We can all get creative in the actual messaging, but it needs to inspire hope and confidence.

Hales, Stephen Hales Creative: A lot of businesses are just five years old and have never been through a recession like this. It’s important to help them remember that this is a cycle we go through. It’s going to happen again in the future. The best thing to do is capitalize on the opportunities.

Chapman, LIME: This is a cycle of life; this is a cycle of business. It becomes a matter of not waiting and instead taking the bull by the horns and running with it.

Ferre, Cultivate Ideas: We need to be creative in not only the way we talk about a product or service but in the way we deliver or price the product. I hate to use clichés, but in the movie “Mr. Mom,” the Schooner Tuna ad was great. I’m not saying we need to go to that extreme, but it is a great example of doing something different and being successful with it. We have to dig inside and reinvent the product or service with an argument of safety and affordability.

Brandon Scott, MIM Creative: Most of our clients are looking for how they can stand out. It’s not necessarily about being better; it’s about being different.

Bennett, BusinessQ: And being different is part of branding your company. How important is branding — especially in 2009?

Scott, MIM Creative: This is a critical time for branding. From the time someone wakes up to the time they go to bed they’ve been hit with more than 400 messages. How are you standing out from the crowd? Most of my conversations with clients are about consistency. The less consistent they are, the less effective they are with their marketing dollar.

Hales, Stephen Hales Creative: One of the problems people experience when they’re going through a down economy is they want to turn to price-based marketing completely instead of branding. The long-term problem with that is consumers become used to buying cars with a $15,000 discount, for example. You really disaffect a lot of your customers this way. Branding is the best thing to do in a down economy. This creates a loyal customer base.

Ferre, Cultivate Ideas: Building a brand is about building a relationship.

Brady, M2 Results: And when we’re talking about a brand, its essential that we’re not just talking about creative. The quality of the product is very much the driver behind the brand. We can’t forget that. There is a perception that your brand is nothing more than your logo and image. It’s much deeper than that. Creating a brand is about creating a customer experience, including everything from the quality of the product or service to the customer’s interaction with the outward symbols of the brand. A good brand inspires confidence, and that confidence inspires market interest and then reinforces buying decisions. People want to be associated with products and services that they feel good about buying, even during a market recession.

Bennett, Business Q: How does a business know if its marketing is working?

Scott, MIM Creative: Look at natural laws. You never see a guy fishing all day in the same spot who hasn’t caught a single fish. That’s how marketing is. You have to measure and see if something is working, and if it’s not working, you have to change things.

Brady, M2 Results: Model everything. Measure everything. Scrutinize every dollar spent. Establish up front what you expect from your marketing efforts. If you’ve hired an agency and they make you look pretty but don’t drive measurable numbers — especially in gross profit — fire them.

Black, Eli Kirk: We can’t be afraid to retool and change. Take the measurements and reexamine and then change based off of educated numbers.

Copier, Kim Brown & Associates: As an agency, we have to have a strong enough relationship with the client that we all walk into a campaign intelligently, knowing we are going to have to maneuver and change as we go through the process.

Chapman, LIME: We live in a day and age where everything is now, now, now. But marketing is an investment. You may not see results immediately.

Hales, Stephen Hales Creative: Don’t abandon a campaign two days into it.

Scott, MIM Creative: You have to be able to look at the big picture.

Copier, Kim Brown & Associates: You need to set expectations up front with your client. You need a timeline stating when you are going to evaluate, but certainly you’re not going to do this after only a few days.

Hales, Stephen Hales Creative: Most business people are “business people.” They want to see hard numbers and know that their marketing is paying off for them. But it’s half art, half science.

Ferre, Cultivate Ideas: It’s incumbent upon us to teach our clients how to measure.

Black, Eli Kirk: If we’re doing our jobs as agencies, we not only tell them we need to measure it, but we ask them what their definition of success is. We may assume that success equals customers — which would make sense in most cases — but maybe it’s not. Define what is successful and then create a campaign around that so that you can measure success.

Copier, Kim Brown & Associates: That is really key. Sometimes there are advertisers who have no clue how to establish a measurement of success and sometimes they are very unrealistic. You have to manage the expectation to make sure it is a feasible goal and that the plan in place is going to achieve the goal they want.

Hales, Stephen Hales Creative: That is one of the problems with some client expectations. They’ll come to us and say, “I want to do a billboard. Now tell me how I can measure it.” Their question should be, “I have X objective, now give me a campaign that reaches that objective.”

Bennett, BusinessQ: What is the advantage of hiring an outside marketing agency such as the seven of you around this table?

Brady, M2 Results: Consider how much it costs to hire a seasoned marketing professional in-house — $75,000 to $100,000 per year? On top of that, add employment taxes, benefits, vacation time, furniture, hardware, software and unproductive time while the person talks to his or her spouse on the phone and plays around on Facebook. Despite that significant investment, the new hire will typically bear true expertise in just one or two facets of marketing. On the other hand, by investing that kind of money in an agency relationship, you end up with an account team that brings broad strengths and varied experience. Instead of hiring one limited person, you end up with a diversity of creativity, intellect and talent delivered by a team of strategists and creatives.

Black, Eli Kirk: What you gain by going to an agency is expertise, a paradigm shift and out-of-the-box thinking. A lot of the time in-house they just can’t get past that this is the way something ought to be or this is the way something ought to look. Having that paradigm shift can add a lot of value.

Brady, M2 Results: The person you bring in-house might simply adopt the opinion of the CEO and then they’re no further ahead because there is no diversity of opinion.

Ferre, Cultivate Ideas: Whenever my clients ask me whether they should hire someone in-house, I always tell them it depends on whether they want to be doing the strategy and design or if they want someone else to do it. What typically happens in-house is the boss dictates strategy and design. If they’re qualified that’s great, but if not then let someone with experience help you.
Copier, Kim Brown & Associate: You end up hiring a jack-of-all-trades, an expert of none. Where as when you go with an agency you have an expert in each individualized section. You can’t get that with one person.

Hales, Stephen Hales Creative: The best way to do an in-house group is not to have the production people in-house, but to have a really smart coordinator who knows what the company needs and can help identify good strategy when he or she sees it. Those are the very best relationships and that’s why all the largest companies in the world outsource their marketing. They have good people in-house who work with outside people to bring that expertise to the company.

Black, Eli Kirk: If you ask any small business — somewhat tongue-in-cheek — if they have an in-house lawyer or accountant, they’ll laugh at you. They will tell you that is a specialized service. So with something that actually makes you money, such as marketing, why would you not do the same thing? Hire the expertise of an outside agency that brings to the table all the experience of previous clients — successes and failures — instead of relying on one or two individuals who don’t have all of that industry experience.

Bennett, BusinessQ: A big piece of the marketing puzzle is technology-based. How do businesses drive customers and future customers to their Web sites?
Chapman, LIME: You need print advertising to get people to your Web site. And then you can use the Web to communicate a message very effectively. I think businesses have this allusion that once they get their site going they are going to sit back and watch the bank meter go up. That’s really not the case. There are very few businesses that are going to have true success selling on the Internet only. But the Web site can inform and educate.

Scott, MIM Creative: Obviously Web sites are essential, but you can’t market with just one medium. When you eat dinner you’ve got your vegetable, fruit, meat, bread, etc. — it’s the same thing with marketing. You need a little bit of everything. That’s what makes a great meal. It’s the whole stirring together that makes a great “marketing” meal.

Hales, Stephen Hales Creative.: Technology is just one element of marketing. You need to find out what you want to talk to people about and where those people are. If it’s technology, that’s where you need to go, in addition to every other place they are. Be careful not to jump on something because it’s the latest or coolest.

Copier, Kim Brown & Associates: On a real basic level, 10 years ago we started telling our clients they’ve got to have a Web site. So they got one and it just sat there because they didn’t know what to do with it. We know that consumers do go to the Web to research before they walk in to any business. It used to be you would go to seven to 10 different dealerships before you would buy a car. Now it’s maybe two because you’ve done all that research ahead of time. Whether you are selling from a Web site or if it’s just an information gathering tool, it’s important. But you have to use external mediums to bring people to your site.

Black, Eli Kirk: I’m going to make a bold statement and say that in today’s market, the Web is the most important thing you could spend money on. People are using the Web to judge credibility. There has to be a hierarchy to your Web site. You give them a little bit on the homepage and then the more interested consumer can go and dig in a little further. It’s very important to have an SEO (search engine optimization) strategy. Search engines love content. Blogs are a great example. They get a lot of “Google love.” The reason for that is because they are new and fresh and Google loves that. Write content, be active in the community, be an expert on a topic, comment on other people’s blogs and link them back to your Web site. It’s an active process, but that’s how you drive people to your site.

Scott, MIM Creative: We like to tell people that a Web site is like yesterday’s business card. You can be a small little company, but just by having a professional look and providing information, it saves you time.

Brady, M2 Results: Choices of which mediums to use should be evaluated based on clear, predefined goals. The question to ask is, “What tactics will reach the greatest number of the target audience for the lowest cost per contact, cost per lead and cost per sale?” With our clients, we typically spreadsheet out the options to look at hard numbers and take the emotion out. Looking at hard costs and likely yields of each option makes it easy to prioritize and plan.

Bennett, BusinessQ: What does a new business need to do to get off the ground?

Black, Eli Kirk: It’s a challenge, because new businesses are struggling. Unless they’ve got a sugar daddy, they don’t have money. They have to be creative. The perception is if you hire an agency, it is going to be more expensive than if you bootstrap. That’s not true. You get more bang-for-your-buck and more return on your investment if you hire an expert. Experts should launch your marketing strategy. If you’re an entrepreneur and not a marketing expert, hire a marketing expert. It’s cheaper than you might think.

Brady, M2 Results: Marketing comes down to three fundamental things: targeting, positioning and messaging. First, targeting. Who exactly are you trying to sell to? It’s not enough to just say “college students.” Among those college students, who are you trying to reach? Second, positioning. Who are you relative to everyone else? What do you want to be perceived as? What is the role you seek to play? Third, messaging. What are the messages your target audience needs to hear? From there, it’s time to look at marketing tactics and to figure out the best way to get those messages sent out.

Chapman, LIME: These are all great points. One other thing I would like to add is integrity. Do not pretend to be what you are not. Do not over-promise because you will always under-deliver. Now is a fabulous time to start a business. You just have to be smart and maintain integrity.

Ferre, Cultivate Ideas: Now is the time to really understand what the marketplace is asking for and needing and demanding, and then find ways to transform your product or service to hit those magic buttons. At the end of the day we all want to save money, to make more money and to have our lives be easier. One of the best reasons to hire an outside set of eyeballs is they understand what the market is doing. They can help you take your product or service and meet the needs of the market. People are buying things, and we in this room know what they are buying. As a startup company, not bringing someone in as a marketing expert is as scary as not getting a business license.

Scott, MIM Creative: Study the competition. A wise man learns from mistakes, but a wiser man learns from others. That’s where advice from experts in the field comes into play. Taking in other people’s opinions and their successes and their failures can be easily transferred to your venture.

Hales, Stephen Hales Creative: Anybody who starts a new business needs to recognize they’re going to make mistakes. How do you minimize the mistakes you’re making? You get help. Get a lawyer, get an accountant, get a banker — then you need to talk to somebody who does marketing. Even if you don’t have the money to do everything marketing-wise that you want to do, at least you know what you need to start with and then you can build from there.

Bennett, BusinessQ: Thank you for bringing us up to speed on marketing. This is one of the most optimistic and upbeat roundtables we’ve had recently!

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