Cut your marketing budget, not your strategy- part 3

Today we have our third installment in our series of cutting marketing costs while maintaining your marketing plan's quality. This series focuses on the short-term options for saving money. Our next series, debuting right after this one, will cover how to save your budget in the long term. 3) Reevaluate communication volume. Do a simple test: take the top 20% of your customer base and find out the average number of times they received some form of marketing communication from your company in the last twelve months. In addition, take a look at the type of communication (mail, call, e-mail, etc.) and what business unit within your organization sent it. Do you have the right number and mix of touches? Don’t be surprised if don’t realize number of times you are bombarding your best customers with various touches. It’s not uncommon for multiple business units within the same company to be marketing in an uncoordinated way to the same customers. With so many groups sending out daily or weekly recurring programs (newsletters, etc.), touches can add up quickly. Are they all really necessary or are you overcommunicating, thus negatively impacting the success of individual programs? How are you enjoying our series? Let us know in the comments!