Results of the Yearly Marketing Survey 2009: in times of crisis, financial metrics and customer loyalty are top concerns for Belgian marketers whose confidence level is at its lowest since 2005.

The current economic crisis has hit Belgian marketers significantly. 56% of them faced a budget reduction in 2008 and many expect more cost cutting in 2009. The House of Marketing’s sixth Yearly Marketing Survey highlights that half of companies in Belgium are currently facing customer loyalty and value challenges at a time when Belgian customers are most price-sensitive and postponing purchase decisions. The importance of green marketing, authenticity and customer experience in marketers’ minds also reinforces the growing need for building sustainable businesses.

For the first time in Belgium, a marketers’ confidence index has been calculated from expectations on marketing budget, staff and projects. The 2009 index is very low (9.5% compared to 25% in 2008), especially in the Healthcare and Utilities sectors, which is due to a significant decrease in expected budget and projects evolutions. For Nicole Berx, Partner at The House of Marketing, “Belgian companies need to adopt a longer-term and analytics-based decision horizon in order to sustainably position marketing as a key value-adding department within the organization.”

In addition to the focus on key challenges, buzzwords and media mix, Belgium’s largest marketing survey (over 1000 marketers responded this year) focused on the impact of the economic crisis on marketers and their planned reactions to it. Three key conclusions emerge for companies in Belgium:

1. Build a sustainable strategy and organization
Be genuine and authentic if you want to stand out from the crowd. A perfect fit has to exist between the corporate identity, business model and culture. Organizations also need to improve their internal operations and external touch-points within a consistent Customer Experience strategy

2. Do more with less marketing resources
Marketing budgets have been cut across the board. Marketers need rock-solid argumentation to raise the budget to its pre-crisis level. Pragmatic performance management tools allowing marketers to track the financial return on marketing initiatives will be crucial. The importance of ROMI will return strongly (only 28% of marketers see this as top challenge) once crisis-related corrective actions have been implemented.

3. Define, create and capture more value and margins
Highlighting product/service added-value is crucial when facing higher price sensitivity, postponement of purchases and a decrease of volumes sold. Find a balance between top-line and bottom-line marketers (data-driven, analytical) to leverage customer information effectively, identify profitable segments and anticipate customers’ reactions. Avoid decisions that are judgment-based, and focus on proper analytical skills to generate relevant insights. Marketers must also get their basics right (such as pricing policy) before launching into the latest buzzword; this includes processes, segmentation and value proposition.