Keep Investing (in Your Marketing)

If you’ve checked CNN’s website even once in the past week, it was pretty hard to miss the devastating headlines, screaming about the latest drop off in the stock market. These headlines can get to even the most level-headed investors, causing them to jump ship, stop investing, or sell it all! Now, I’m no financial advisor but I do know that when the market’s in shambles, your best bet as an investor is to stay the course and keep investing.

Well, it turns out the same thing can be said about investing in your marketing campaign. According to Carol Wright, Pitney Bowes’ direct marketing manager, now is the time to keep investing in direct-to-consumer marketing efforts with the available budget that you have.

During tough economic times, the temptation is to sit tight, cut back and wait for the crisis to blow over. Cutting marketing activities such as mailing may seem like an easy solution, but experience from companies that have weathered previous economic downturns suggests that investing in marketing during these times is a way to grow your business.

Buy Low

According to Wright, an analysis of the Profit Impact of Marketing Strategies (PIMS) database presented at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising conference in March 2008 found that companies that maintained their marketing budgets during a recession gained an additional 1.3% of market share on average during the recovery period.

Come Out on Top

While 1.3% may not seem like much as first blush, think about the alternative. Every day during a recession you see reports of companies losing money, losing market share, losing mind share and losing a grip on the loyal customer base that they once had.

Action Summary

What do you have to do to maintain your current levels of marketing activity. Maybe you can’t afford the same budget, but can you retool some of the activities within your organization to focus on marketing instead of operational tasks?

Tweet