10 marketing takeaways from BrandStorm 2021 — Continued
Editor's note: This is part two of a two-part report on takeaways from the first day of BrandStorm 2021. Check out takeaways 1-5 here.
6. Test and learn.
“Trials don’t have to be expensive,” Campbell said. “You don’t have to start with $100,000 campaigns. You can start with $5,000 tests, see how things evolve.”
Phasing in projects can keep risk low and build justification for larger investments — or a small test show you those resources could be better deployed in other areas, if the return is not what you expected it to be.
7. Document your plan and the execution of your plan, and report the results regularly.
First, define what success looks like, Terry said. Make sure everyone is on the same page about the metrics that will be used and over what time horizon to evaluate your marketing tactics. Discuss short-term, mid-term and long-term opportunities and provide updates as needed, whether on a relatively quick turnaround for a small test or repeatedly at key milestones of a long-term project.
8. Don’t try to do it all.
As you develop an understanding of what worked and what didn’t work in the previous year, “prioritize those strategies and tactics within the plan so that if you get to certain thresholds you know where those break points are and that you’re doing one thing really well versus three or four things not so well,” Terry said.
9. Every pitch is stronger with data to back it up.
One of the benefits of the test-and-learn approach is the generation of de facto case studies that prove the value of a certain action. Data can be pivotal for both internal and external pitches. Shopper marketing expert Julie DeWolf said she has found data incredibly helpful in explaining to retailers why they should test a new product or expand distribution on an item they already carry.
“Those are some of the slam dunks, actually, in what we do,” DeWolf said. “If you already have data to support that something’s doing well in a certain part of the country but it just hasn’t reached the part you’re talking to yet, why not convince them to test it out. If you’ve got the data to back it up, there’s no way they should say no to it.”
Strong relationships are the foundation for those conversations, she added, and regularly presenting category insights grounded in data can make them even stronger.
“Oftentimes they don’t even know what they’re missing, and once you start the process of going to them with data, you become a very valued partner to them,” DeWolf said.
10. Marketing has transformative power, and now it’s less expensive than ever.
Grinstead gave an example of a series of events that changed his view of marketing in the early 2000s, when he was chief operating officer of Standard Fruit & Vegetable.
“We were considered a stodgy, old-school wholesaler, and that’s not what we were anymore,” Grinstead said. “We wanted to transform our image.”
Grinstead recalled that Dan’l Mackey Almy — then the company’s marketing guru, now president and CEO of DMA Solutions — put forth an $800,000 proposal. Her case was compelling, and that leadership gave its approval, and the results were what just the company had hoped for.
“In the next six months we transformed the company, and the image of the company and what we were, both internally and externally.”
Marketing can still play a key role in that kind of revolution, and it doesn’t cost what it used to, Grinstead said.
“The opportunities that we have to really move our businesses forward and transform our businesses at a much lower cost than what it used to be and much more effective and much more targeted — I love this brave new world, and it’s exciting to me,” Grinstead said.
