What is the main difference between big brands and smaller brands? The former obviously have much bigger budgets, which makes activating a through-the-line marketing strategy a simpler task than for small brands, which have to keep track on all expenditures and monitor their ROI.
I’ve been working in the FMCG industry for a while now and the most common excuses for Brand Managers when they fail to meet their objective is ” … their budget is massive compared to ours – how do you expect me to compete with that!”
I must say, I fell into the same trap a couple of times but that is before I got introduced to the notion of online marketing and more specifically Social Media Marketing (SMM).
SMM levels the playing field and gives every brand the same advantages and opportunities! With marketing budgets being slashed, having an effective and low-cost tool that communicates directly with your customers should sound like music to your stakeholders.
I’m not saying that you should inject all your budget in social media, but you should certainly consider dedicating part of it for developing your social media. SMM has certainly provided companies with the option of competing with the “big guns” and establishing thought leadership.
The close of the year is upon us and most of you (marketeers) are probably half way through their planning for next year’s marketing calendar. Why not think of how your brand can benefit from Social Media in 2010 – Think about it!