Are you currently reducing your marketing budget?

Your message of “we are currently reducing our marketing budget at the same time the amount of marketing projects is increasing” is heard, but what are you going to do about it?

If a marketing professional wants to make their presence known to the organization, the time is now. Instead of cowering in the corner waiting for your job to be cut, rise up and take charge. Establish yourself as a marketer that can work in all types of situations, even the darkest of economic hours. Prove to the organization that marketing will not be steered off course in the effort to reach the marketplace with a consistent brand voice.

Your resources are being eliminated and your budget cut in half but what are you going to do about it? The time to step up and advance your career is now; but how? Let the spotlight shine in the corner of software-as-a-service. You could not paint a better picture for the justification of software-as-a-service technologies:

• Marketing resources being eliminated – CHECK
• I.T. resources being eliminated – CHECK
• Marketing budgets being cut – CHECK
• Marketing project load increasing – CHECK

You have heard the message from every software-as-a-service provider but maybe this time that message will resonate. When the provider says you can do more with less, they are talking about the situation you are currently in. Trying to market in a downturn is an extremely difficult task but doing so successfully requires the right strategy, the right resources, and the right attitude. The attitude is all in your court but strategy and resources is where you can reach out and ask for help.

Isolate the creation, management, and distribution of your digital media. You cannot just stop creating the digital media that helps drive revenue. In fact you are creating exponentially more of it because the impact is greater and it is the most cost effective way to reach the market with your message.

As you create more of it, you create larger problems with managing and distributing it. Managing and distributing large and large amounts of marketing and creative files is a responsibility you can delegate to your sales and marketing channels. Establish the process by which everyone in need of your digital media is granted self-service access. Establish one central source of digital media that can be repurposed and distributed worldwide while maintaining the integrity of your brand. Establish the foundation for reducing costs. Establish a digital asset management system using a software-as-a-service provider.

As a fellow marketer, I have used software-as-a-service technologies to manage and distribute digital media and I can guarantee that software-as-a-service providers enable you to do more with less. Whether it is customer relationship management with Salesforce.com, digital asset management with Widen, or web content management with Clickability, a software-as-a-service provider is the answer to the ultimate question; what are you going to do about it?