In the current economy, the customer is king and providing the best customer experience forms the major part of the company’s value.

In this scenario, investing a considerable amount of company budget in marketing has become inevitable.

Importance of Marketing Investment

A research study from Forbes CMO states that the value of an enterprise is significantly impacted by the returns from its marketing investments. A sound marketing strategy can contribute to company value up to 50% in terms of brand, customers and digital assets. Marketing investment is more important than ever to thrive in today’s competitive business environment. A well laid out marketing budget is the first step in measuring your planned investment to acquire new customers and retain existing ones. It also helps to identify opportunities to optimize your marketing investment. Here are the ways in which strategic marketing investment can benefit your business:

Increase in Sales
This is the most obvious benefit of marketing investment as marketing directly correlates to sales. Marketing fetches you a wider audience and better reach which in turn boosts your sales.

Brand Awareness
Marketing investment helps to grow brand awareness, especially through the booming digital marketing platforms. Traditional ways of marketing through TV and print media can be replaced by cheaper and more effective social media marketing. It targets a niche audience specifically and provides better reach to potential customers.

Keep up with Consumers
Consumers are getting smarter and have increased awareness thanks to social media. They also have high expectations from a trusted brand. Marketing investment helps to keep up with consumer demand. The digitally savvy consumer can find out if a company does not have a website or a presence in social media. This could be a disadvantage that may go against the purchase of the product or service.

Build Customer Equity
Billion dollar companies like LinkedIn and Airbnb are using only digital platforms to engage their thousands of customers. Through marketing investment, they have managed to gain the trust of customers, through excellent experiences and deep, long-lasting relationships.

Leverage seasonal sales
To keep up with seasonal trends, the company must have a strong digital marketing plan in place.
Email and mobile marketing have proven to drive online sales to a great extent and these must be a part of marketing investment.

Build a Reputation
A strong presence online is a key factor in making a company trustworthy. Marketing makes consumers can rely on the company to be responsive and accessible.
Businesses that do not have a social media presence may lose their customers to the competitors.

Increase in ROI
Reports from MASB show that returns on marketing investment directly contributes to the earnings of a company and its overall Return on Investment. This is made possible through the marketing cycle. Marketing investment can fetch you more clients, improve brand awareness and eventually increase your sales.

Marketing Investment is a “must-have” in any business plan. Digitally equipped customers expect quicker response times, customized solutions, and value for their money. All this can be achieved only through Marketing Investment which is the foundation for building brand value and high stature for a business.