Happy New Year everyone! We at Model Citizens are excited by the start of not only the new year but also the new decade and what it might bring.
We are still a young company and as such are still establishing ourselves, yet 2009 saw us achieve triple digit growth. For any company, in any economic environment, this would be deemed a big success and we are delighted this has been possible given the difficult year a lot of small businesses have had. Not only has the company grown but we have seen diversification of our client portfolio; establishing the Model Citizens brand in a number of new sectors. In parallel we have not neglected our loyal client base. We want to work with our clients to achieve success and there is no more positive feedback than a renewed contract or engagement.
One of the sectors we do support extensively is retail which, as we all know, has particularly suffered over the last 12 months. We’ve seen a drastic change on the high street with the likes of Woolworths and Whittards ceasing to trade. In the press it has been well publicised that marketing budgets have been slashed and advertising revenues are down. In reality this has been extremely challenging with CEOs demanding greater return for lower investment. Those companies that have succeeded have done so by investing time, and yes money, in really understanding where the highest ROI can be achieved across both direct and above the line campaigns. Investment in econometric modelling continues to increase whilst the smaller retailers have focussed on doing the basics well: Who are my customers and how best can I serve them? It’s the age old message that CRM has been preaching for the last couple of decades. However, the difference is that companies are more wary of the IT price tag associated with CRM. We believe one of the reasons we have been so successful in 2009 is we have helped smaller companies understand their customer base and how to market to them without an investment in IT and have helped larger companies chose and implement the right IT solution for them.
2009 proved to be a difficult year for many but we believe that a lot of companies have learnt about appropriate, focussed investment to achieve results – a policy that will yield significant returns when the growth economy returns, hopefully later this year.