Wilson Miller - Technology Marketing. Inspired.

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Consolidate or Integrate - considerations for technology marketing support

Many technology marketers now have the considerable task of reducing their marketing spend, with the preferred supplier lists often taking a substantial hit. With so many types of marketing services available, what needs to be considered when reducing expenditure? Should you consolidate or integrate?

The dilemma across the IT and technology industry is for companies to cut marketing spend, with as little negative impact on the returns as possible.

There are five prominent motivations for this trend. First, some procurement teams are given the unenviable task to put pressure on all departments to reduce budget, thus proving company reduction in spend and service expenditure. Second, budget holders who have their funds slashed or capped use their own initiative in attempting to deliver marketing activity with reduced outgoings. This often coincides with increased output from the internal marketing team. Third, with mergers and acquisitions continually evolving the IT landscape, the opportunity to restructure suppliers is seen as a chance to reduce service overhead and maximise efficiencies. Fourth, self preservation can provoke a reduction on service budgets, which could limit the likelihood of headcount reductions. Finally, it can simply be a case of having ‘too many cooks...’ with multiple marketing shops causing delay and duplication, draining the marketing budget dry.

When you consider the agency selection process, there are a number of ways that technology marketers can assess their agency support.

• Most prefer selecting the seemingly appropriate existing domain-expert(s), from web design shops to consumer research agencies.

• Some opt for the current supplier(s) that is the most trusted based on previous programmes.

• Others pick the existing incumbent(s) who can handle the highest volume of marketing campaigns.

All these options lead to consolidation, with IT companies gaining significant buying power, demanding agencies to offer more competitive prices to deliver within the newly adjusted budgets. However, none of these really question how to obtain better Return On Marketing Investment (ROMI) from reduced budgets.

There is a fourth way, recruiting a new agency model to achieve these new goals. Appointing an integrated technology marketing agency can simplify your supplier relationships and cut costs. An integrated marketing agency can accommodate several different disciplines into a single marketing programme.

There can be scepticism when placing ‘all marketing eggs into one supplier basket’, but dealing with one integrated technology marketing agency has several benefits over other agency models:

• Integration allows fast-tracked campaign deployment through a single account management team.

• Campaign budgets and disruptions are reduced through integrated planning.

• An integrated technology marketing agency has to take more accountability with unified reporting and analytics.

All these advantages combine to offer greater ROMI, but efficiency and cost savings vary significantly, depending on the setup of incumbent marketing shops and the capabilities of the integrated agency.

In business, it can be difficult to break established professional relationships. Emotional loyalty to a supplier can be strong, but with such compelling benefits from integration, the case for change cannot be ignored. Contractual obligations can tie-down firms to a set of marketing service-providers, but project-based agreements allow activity to be flexible and integrated.

If an IT company has chosen to consolidate, has enough been done to challenge whether the best ROMI is achieved through their marketing incumbents? If it hasn’t, surely considering an integrated approach will ensure the right relationships are in place? Using an integrated agency that understands your objectives can really add value to marketing initiatives.

‘Consolidate or integrate’ is part of the Braincell series of insights published by Wilson Miller, the marketing agency dedicated to the technology sector.