Oct 15 2008
Time for marketing to drive growth?
A recent article pubished by Deloitte has highlighted the fact that more and more CEO’s are now turning to marketing to deliver growth in this difficult economic climate. Malcolm Williamson, head of Deloitte’s marketing effectiveness team, stated:
“As market conditions deteriorate, growth is like gold dust. Our research has found that organisations believe that marketing is the driver for growth through its role as a generator of demand. It is now time for marketing to rise to the challenge.”
A total of 81% of all CEO’s contacted by Deloitte identified marketing as a key driver for growth and 85% identified it as crucial to devising corporate strategy. At the same time, only 20% of senior marketers surveyed by Deloitte believed that marketing in their organisation was truly effective. So whilst those at the top regard marketing as key to future success, it continues to be one of the first budgets to be cut when the going gets tough. Why? Deloitte’s findings show that this is down to a lack of shared understanding of the role of marketing. Sounds familiar? It’s certainly an issue that resonates with us, where we find that all too often “Marketing” is seen as a tactical “cost” - rather than necessary element in defining the future direction - and success - of an organisation.
Those companies who are able to understand where strategic marketing fits into their organisation are those who are then able to fight for growth. Making sure your organisation is fighting fit is never more important than in a tougher ecomonic climate. As marketing strategy consultants, we not only help our customers define where marketing fits within their organisation we then help them develop effective marketing strategies to achieve their objectives for growth.
Time will tell if those companies who were able to use marketing to drive growth weather the storms ahead, but is it really worth the risk? Is it better to be a sitting duck or to come out fighting? To read the full and excellent article from Deloitte, click here.
[…] on from the previous post (Time for marketing to drive growth?) which shows that marketing becomes even more important in difficult times, it’s interesting […]