'Do More with Less': Building Strategic Alignment with a Risk Portfolio Approach to Marketing Strategy

Marketing leaders often face the challenge of being asked to “do more with less,” balancing ambitious growth goals with a reduced budget. Reframing this conversation around the company’s risk profile can lead to more effective discussions with the C-suite and board.

Building Marketing Strategy in Context of the Company’s Risk Profile

A marketing strategy should align with the company’s risk profile, particularly in how risk is framed and distributed. Key questions include:

- What is the company’s overall risk profile? How much growth is expected?

- How is this risk spread across the organization, including Sales, Product Development, and Marketing?

- Are you looking to Marketing to provide guaranteed, steady state growth, or more ambitious, but higher risk approach?

A company’s risk profile may shift rapidly, during  situations such as:

- Market Disruption: When a new entrant or technology changes the competitive landscape, bold marketing moves may be required to stay relevant.

- Product Launches or Expansions: Entering new markets or launching new products often requires significant investment in untested strategies.

- Declining Effectiveness of Traditional Channels: As traditional channels lose effectiveness due to market or technological changes, riskier new channels and experimentation may become necessary.

Crafting a Balanced Risk Portfolio: Growth, Risk Tolerance, and Time Horizon

When considering their experimentation strategy, marketers often rely on the 80/20 (or some variation) rule—80% on proven methods, 20% on experimentation.  But reality is more nuanced, especially in today’s rapidly changing digital landscape, where even “proven” methods carry increased risks. 

Marketers should develop a series of investment strategies, analyzing them through 3 lenses: 

- risk tolerance

- time horizon

- growth expectations. 

These strategies might range from high-risk activities like launching new channels, adopting new technologies, or building new teams, to lower-risk options such as repeating successful campaigns or optimizing existing channels. They should also range from short term impact to longer term fruition.

Success Through Collaboration

By organizing these strategies into distinct risk portfolios, marketers can facilitate collaborative discussions with leadership to determine which approach aligns best with the company’s risk profile. This method fosters transparency and ensures that trade-offs between high growth with higher risk and lower growth with lower risk are clearly understood and supported.

If you’d like help building out this framework for your strategy, please reach out to me.  If you’ve taken a similar approach, I’d love to hear how it worked for you.