Worried about the recession?
Market your business.
For some reason, as soon as the “R” word begins to float around, part of the resulting business panic is a knee-jerk decision to cut the marketing budget. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Smart marketing during an economic downturn is one of the best ways to recession-proof your business. Now notice, I said “smart.” To be smart, your marketing must be connected to your business plan goals. Every marketing decision, every marketing dollar and every moment of marketing effort must be tied into a bottom-line goal. Not only that, but every decision, dollar and effort must have some method of evaluation built in so that you know you’re getting the bang for the buck.
For companies that take a “Ready, fire aim” approach to marketing, the impulse to cut the marketing budget is rooted in a couple of limiting beliefs. First, they don’t really believe marketing is essential to success, so it’s a “nice to have” instead of a “must have.” Second, they don’t believe marketing’s effectiveness can be measured, which makes it easier to sacrifice when the budget gets squeezed. And third, they don’t see marketing as intrinsically connected to achieving their business plan goals, so it becomes easy to jettison.
Smart marketing is as essential as paying the rent on your office space. It’s as crucial to meeting your business plan goals as having a quality product or service. And when the economy burps and recession comes, companies that are marketing smart are the ones most likely to weather the storm. That’s because when there’s an economic downturn, competition is higher than ever for the prospects who are spending money. Not only that, but if you provide a service or product that your clients consider to be essential (and they will if you’ve been doing your marketing job), then you become a crucial part of your clients’ plan for riding out the economic storm.
It’s your marketing that shows clients and prospects why they can’t afford to do without your product or service, even in lean times. It’s your marketing that focuses on meeting their needs and solving their problems–needs and problems that don’t go away when the Dow falls. It’s your marketing that builds and sustains a relationship with your clients and prospects to make you a trusted advisor rather than a replaceable deliveryman. If you’ve been doing your marketing job right, your customers and prospects respect your knowledge, value your advice, and understand your contribution to the success of their business. Once they understand how valuable you are to their goals, they have less incentive to cut their spending with your firm, even if they have to make cuts elsewhere.
Cutting your marketing during lean economic times is business suicide–if you’re marketing smart.
If the whole idea of connecting your marketing to your business plan goals seems foreign, or if you’re not sure how to recession-proof your business, join me for my upcoming four-part webinar: “30-Day Marketing Restart” at www.30DayMarketingRestart.com. I’ll show you how to make marketing your best investment regardless of your budget level, and I promise you’ll see new ways to save time, save money and get better results!
Tags: downturn, economy, marketing, PR, publicity, recession, restart, turnaround
