In Focus: Design issues
There is a famous Bill Gates quote that goes "if I was down to my last dollar I'd spend it on public relations". Whilst appreciating the sentiment, the problem most SMEs have is that you can’t get much by way of PR for a buck.
Research released this week by marketing and advertising company Tweak.com shows that design is proving too expensive for small businesses in the West Midlands and that 48 per cent of SMEs here design corporate materials in-house because using an external designer is too expensive.
Nothing wrong with that, as long as the requisite quality threshold is met, but the Tweak research showed that 34 per cent of small businesses feel that their lack of expertise and creativity or inspiration has a detrimental effect on the final materials produced.
It also highlights an underlying problem at the moment: in many cases SMEs are having to take a ‘make do and mend’ approach to avoid spending money on all but the essentials. The key question then is do you agree with Bill Gates that money saved on marketing is a false economy?
And according to some specialists, it might not cost that much anyway. Speaking to an Insider reporter writing a feature on branding this month, Bronwen Eames, managing director of Sutton Coldfield’s Haslimann Taylor PR, said social media can now be used to great effect.
“A lot of traditional marketing has been about pushing messages but increasingly it’s turning into a conversation because of the growth of blogging, tweets and Facebook,” she said.
Which suggests that cutting corners on marketing spend doesn’t mean cutting down on marketing effectiveness, unless you are simply trying to ape on the cheap what an external agency would provide. It just needs a bit of lateral thinking.
The bigger issue I think is that many SMEs don’t feel they are in a position where they can spend money and this could just as easily be in the research and development or recruitment areas as marketing.
A lot of this is to do with confidence, of course, but it I suspect it is also because of the lack of finance available to companies at this end of the market. It may be that companies have been rejected by a bank when requesting finance for growth or they have felt too intimidated to approach the bank in the first place and are maintaining a bunker mentality.
Either way, to get the economy moving again we need to sees SMEs spending on things that could help their company grow. A recent Insider round table focused on this issue and the general consensus seemed to be that banks are open for business but only for companies of a certain size and in certain sectors. There are loan schemes and funds available for smaller companies but they either have too high a starting point (in turnover terms) or are merely scratching at the surface of the problem.
One idea is to establish what is known as a JEREMIE fund, which allows access to European funds at a favourable rate of interest. This could help to develop small businesses in the area and Birmingham City Council is understood to be talking about this to the European powers that be at the moment.
Let’s hope that talks get somewhere because SMEs are clearly crying out for financial help.
Comments? Andy Coyne, Insider
