Spending money in marketing is really very easy. Just appoint an agency on retainer to start and then apply the most ostentatious communications you can think of – advertising – and soon your budget will be eroded. Yes, leads may come along and of course there will be other things that need dong justifying yet another increase in marketing spend, but was it the best way to achieve the results?

Understanding which communications and when to use them is the answer. Creating results from as little spend should be the target, not justifying yet another investment in brand refresh or exhibition participation when analysis of previous years work proves it to be unnecessary. Sounds straightforward but year-in-year out huge amounts of money is invested in ‘whim’ communications that sound interesting and are enjoyable but lack the productive resultis of mundane approaches.

That’s why companies who have realised that communications isn’t a matter of pick and mix spending come in Anderson Baillie. A strategy should have a core strategy dictating which communications are adopted and when or why. It is often as a result of budgets being cut and now having to be more creative in spending, it also comes from a greater demand for measurement – where finance teams have started to scrutinise all marketing spend for its results.