I was early for a Zoom call earlier this week. Only by a couple of minutes, and I wasn’t even first there.
I’m glad I was early though, because the two guys who were there before me were having an interesting chat and I caught enough of it to make me think. (Both kitchen retailers, by the way.)
One of the guys (I think called Steve) was talking openly about his volume of sales enquiries – or rather the lack of them. We were three weeks into August, and he’d only had two meagre enquiries find their way into his showroom.
He had 18 enquiries in June apparently, a few less in July, and hardly a handful in August so far.
Steve was thinking he would cut back his marketing spend on the basis that it clearly wasn’t working. But the other guy wasn’t having any of it.
The other guy – by the way – was the more successful of the two by some margin. He’d been in this game for a long time. The advice he gave was simple:
He said that, done well, marketing can be like a magic box on your desk. Every week, you drop a few coins into it, and every year, it spits out more than you put in.
In all his time in this industry, the only way he’d seen people build success was by committing to putting money into their ‘magic boxes’ over long periods of time. There are always ups and downs, good months and bad, but over time, you’ll generally get more out than you put in.
Steve didn’t seem convinced; he was looking at cash flow and where he could make savings. The other guy, of course, highlighted that you can’t save your way to success in business.
Over the long term, marketing is an investment, not a cost. It generates a positive return, and we've got to base our decisions not just on today's numbers but on long-term ROI and what’s coming up in the future.
And what’s around the corner is September - historically one of the strongest months for our industry - with schools going back and home improvement plans hatched over a pina colada in the summer acted upon.
So, with September on the horizon, now is not the time to start thinking about cutting back on your marketing spend, even if August has been as bleak for you as it was for poor Steve.
We’ve seen that kitchen enquiries are picking up, and there’s every reason that should further improve over the next couple of months.