Who's marketing budget is it anyway?

National and global brands that operate through local partners whether branches, retailers, dealers, franchisees, or affiliates often set aside funds to support their network’s own local marketing activity.

Sometimes called Co-op Funds or Marketing Development Funds (MDF) each brand will have its own rules around the distribution and acceptable uses for the money. The idea is to encourage greater activity at local level, often the funds are used in a 50/50 arrangement where partner spend is matched by the brand.

Savvy brands are keen to do this as they recognise the significant effect that their partners’ marketing can have. By increasing the footprint of the brand’s messaging and making it relevant at local level, the effectiveness increases exponentially.

So what are the sins?

The MOST heinous sin brands commit is not providing ANY local marketing support to their network in the first place! The least you should be doing is letting them have easy access to your own advertising resources.

Without your financial or material support what will they do? At best they’ll do things themselves or use a local marketing agency. That often results in marketing that is off-brand, off-message and totally out of synch with your own national marketing. At worst they’ll do the easiest thing, which is… nothing at all. Where will that get you?

Another shocking sin is allowing Co-op Funds to go unclaimed. Often as much as 50% of the annual kitty simply doesn’t get used by the network. When queried, local partners usually cite the following reasons:

• I didn’t have time
• It’s too complicated
• I ran out of credit
• It didn’t cover my needs

The final sin for today is allowing total freedom for local partners when it comes to the marketing campaigns and media choices they are making. They're rarely experts when it comes to marketing and most likely to be using at least one of the following:

• Wrong messages
• Wrong branding
• Wrong media spaces

So how do you receive redemption?

With a Local Marketing Hub (also known as Marketing Asset Management (MAM)) and a great team of We Are Acuity local marketing experts supporting it of course!

This can host a vast range of personalised and localised marketing templates, as well as best-practice guidance and advice for your network. How would it help, in this case? Well for a start Co-op Funds can be easily promoted and managed through a Local Marketing Hub, and even if you don't offer them, by providing your network with effective local marketing materials you’ll be keeping them on-brand and on-message and will save them thousands in production and marketing budget. What's not to like?

If any of this sounds familiar to you, it's time to take charge and witness the game-changing impact of well-executed local marketing.  It maximises the potential of your brand and network by amplifying its physical and digital presence and engaging its people.

National to Local experts We Are Acuity have 25 years experience in effective local marketing for national brands. If you are impatient to know more, why not visit this page to download the full range of fascinating FREE ebooks today? Packed with tips, tricks and ideas it will be well worth your time. See you next week!

Or if you'd like to read more about Local Marketing have a look at our blog page "Local Thinking': https://www.weareacuity.com/local-thinking-our-blog

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