Data-driven decision-making is trending.Organisations have been shifting their media budgets towards ‘easy-to-quantify’ performance campaigns. This has led to an increased awareness among organisations of ROI and performance campaigns. However, it’s also resulted in an increasing challenge for marketing departments in terms of quantifying the long-term impact of branding on bottom-line sales and balancing branding and performance campaigns.
This challenge has resulted in the emergence of a reactionary trend. Organisations are focusing more on the effect of a long-term strategy that integrates branding and performance on delivering the best results in the long run.
It is easier for a strong brand to reach performance goals, because when a brand grows in strength, it will result in more sales and traffic. Building a strong brand is therefore essential to reaching long-term performance goals.
Tips
A data-driven perspective implies that a long-term relationship exists between the brand and performance KPI data. In order to measure the long-term effects of branding on sales, you have to draw up along-term investment strategy. That strategy needs to balance or leverage the media investment between branding and performance campaigns.
A few tips on balancing branding and performance campaigns:
· Brand campaigns have a short-term impact that you can measure directly. They have less impact than performance campaigns. Moreover, brand campaigns should be evaluated based on long-term(baseline) sales increases.
· A strong brand facilitates sales and thus increases the effectiveness of performance campaigns.
· Use combinations of campaigns and channels that complement each other. A classic example is using television to drive search campaigns.
· Split marketing budgets in order to create a balance between long-term brand growth and short-term performance KPIs. Build your brand in order to reach new performance plateaus.
Combining branding and performance enables both a holistic view and the synchronisation of short-term and long-term results. This encourages greater synergy due to increased clarity across the organisation. It also provides practical tools that facilitate well-defined decisions regarding media investments and strategy.
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