The economy has without a doubt left a bad taste in the mouth (and wallet) of many business owners, and a fair number have indicated that they will reduce their marketing budgets just to save some money and continue surviving. I personally feel that this should be done as a last resort only, because marketing is what drives customers to your business, and customers are what drive growth, and ultimately survival.
Not everyone is going this route to save on expenses. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has made available some data collected by 1,200 attendees to its Master of Marketing Conference held back in October. The data looks at where marketers are planning to take their strategies in the foreseeable future - 2009.
27% of attendees said that they actually intend to spend more on marketing in the coming year. That's only slightly less than the 33% who said they would reduce spending. BUT, the same number (an additional 33%) said that their spending would remain constant, and that they would merely be reallocating their marketing mix.
Mixing it Up
That means that businesses are perhaps being more cautious and observant of their own marketing strategies (this might lead to a nice boom in business for the web analytics industry). It really brings up a good point. The economic downturn that many companies are facing is providing a wake-up call for maximization of marketing results. In other words, more businesses need to step up testing of different marketing methods. Find out which ones are proving successful and which ones are wasting dollars.
It also means targeted advertising is probably going to play an even bigger role, because highly targeted campaigns tend to be more relevant to consumers, and are perhaps more likely to drive them to the advertised business. Targeted advertising is a big part of online methods like search engine advertising, and email marketing. Although with targeted platforms from social networks like MySpace and Facebook, I wouldn't rule out social media either.
For more on the ANA study and its implications of social media marketing practices, read my coverage at WebProNews.
How Are Small Businesses Marketing For the Holidays?Is That Really How You Want to Save Money?Local Online Advertising Woes Should Lead to InnovationBad Economy May Make Marketing More ImportantMarket Research More Important Than EverWhy More Businesses Are Turning to Email MarketingIs Print Marketing Still in Your Mix? Marketing Tips for Limited BudgetsWhat Consumers Think About Recession-Related MarketingEmail Marketing Still Has a Place in Your Marketing Arsenal | |||
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Comments
Marketers May Have To Mix It Up
Marketers worth their salt have, in my opinion, have had to be versatile in their strategy since this media became so prolific. Using as many environments, ie the social and interactive networks as possible and practical was hard to crack but it's become a main stay in the menu of dishing out my message. Not unlike farming and agriculture, diversification is the name of the game, in my opinion. Another analogy is the tool box of a mechanic or the tray of tools used by a dentist. One uses whatever works to get the job done.
RE: markketers may have to mix it up
Totally Agree
I totally agree with what you said about this being the absolute wrong time to cut marketing budgets. The good thing about the current economic climate is that it is giving us all a wakeup call about choosing better, more targeted ways to spend our advertising dollars rather than just using the scatter approach so many have in the past.
RE: Marketers mixing it up
Any time is a bad time to cut marketing budgets, however tuff things are, like Chris says marketing is what drives customers to your business. I agree that online marketing methods are the way forward in this ecconomic climate, especialy for small businesses that have yet to enter the online marketing scene, it doesnt matter how little is being spent, if the return on investment is good then business owners will trust and spend more.
It's not all bad...
Thanks, Chris, for this great article. Tough times are...well, tough. Yes, it's hard to grow our businesses during these tough economic times but tough times also force us to trim the fat and get down to basics and that's true of marketing strategies.
Marketing that isn't necessarily effective should be trimmed but when things are going well, we tend to keep doing what we've always done, not really looking at whether it's doing the job for us or not. With that in mind, tough times aren't all bad if they force us to take a good look at our marketing strategies.
As a web site owner for safety and security products, I'm having to not only look at my marketing strategies but specific marketing tools that will add value to the sale and convert the visitors that come to my site into customers. Consumers are looking for more return on their dollars too.
I dislike this economic downturn as much as the next person but I'm trying to stay positive and look for the bright side. It's not all bad.
I cannot wait to see what
I cannot wait to see what happens just so i can follow suit!!
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