The news in the industry are like thunder blots and every day we used to hear news “DHL cuts Jobs, Dell sent off xxx employees, yes we are in an economic downturn. People every day talk about this, It’s on the news, blogs, webs and it is in the papers. A common trend I can see most of the firms try to cut their marketing budget. I took part in a poll survey created by Linkdin. In the poll results I saw most of the professionals are worried about their marketing spend. Let’s start reducing and cutting costs and marketing is the first to go. Makes sense, right? No! Let me explain.
Don’t you dare cut your marketing budget. That is one of the first mistakes managers make during times of economic crisis. They tends to do it because of pressure from CEO or director, or they try to act as the competitor do.
Its time for a smart thinking about your marketing spend to bring the desired results. Yeh it sounds good but you may think how do you do it?The key is to look at your marketing spend as an investment not an expense. Use the customer knowledge that you have and implement SMART marketing during these times of financial distress.
SMART marketing consists of the following
S – Strategize
M – Maintain market spend
A – Assess and allocate the budget
R – Research your customer thoroughly
T – Target and reach out to them
Stand fast during this time and make sure you never rest until you achieve the results. There are companies survived difficult times and have came out strong. Don’t think these are just words. I came across a very good study done by Smeal college. Research: Proactive Marketing During Recession.
All business owners should read this, they remind of us of companies that weathered the storm and succeeded. Some good examples mentioned in the articles are stated below
Procter and Gamble – During the Great Depression they pushed Ivory soap.
Intel – In 1990-1991 during economic difficulty they pushed out the campaign “Intel Inside”.
Wal-mart – Walmart launched their “Every Day Low Prices” campaign in 2000-2001.
Even when there are difficult times in the economy well-positioned, branded companies can in fact survive and thrive in them. It truly is about being SMART in marketing and taking marketing seriously now more than ever. Practice marketing very strongly. Put your effort in total. Know you customer well. Try to get all the inside and out about them. Make sure to practice the database marketing very effectively with proper data mining. Definitely they may also suffering with the hard economic condition and create your marketing message around that. Send them offers, promotions, free tests, they will be happy. If you feel the production is costing more revise your product but make sure you get the customer opinion. Maintain a good relationship always.
Think, if you in fact cut the marketing expenses, how your potential customers find you? But anyway put your effort to get maximum out of your existing customers, and try to find new customers as well. In my point I’m not agree with cutting marketing budget, do more campaigns with the support of resources. If you are SMART then economic downturn will never impact you. I would like to hear your comments in this regard.
Ragulan Tharmakulasingam 