Recession marketing dos and don'ts

Cuts in your marketing budget trade short-term savings for future sales,
so compensate by boosting return on the balance

As a US industrial producer in first quarter 2010, your sales are probably down, you're cutting overhead in response, and you need big changes to stop surviving and start thriving. Marketing is easy to cut because it's a variable expense with no immediate downside; the sales leads you fail to receive today may take six to 12 months to show up as missing revenue. But if borrowing from the future becomes a necessary risk, we suggest that you: Stop short of cutting to the point where the resulting decrease in future sales threatens your ability to meet fixed overhead, per the adage, "You can't always save your way to solvency."   Completely re-evaluate your remaining budget allocations to dramatically boost qualified leads per dollar, concentrating on short term generation of inquiries with immediate buying		intentions — postponing "specification selling" and relegating "branding" exercises" to consumer product advertisers. Market volatility and rapidly changing media options require you to rethink everything. Instead of simply weathering the recession, however, you can turn it to your advantage. Even though total sales in your market sector may be down, you can more than compensate by increasing your share of that market. It's true that competitors may be bidding harder against you and margins may be lower, but consider how much easier and inexpensive it now is for you to generate leads and sales that your competitors may never see — now that they are retreating from the battlefield. In addition, growing your business during these times may not require you to increase or even maintain previous spending levels... providing that you compensate with markedly improved advertising, public relations and sales department strategies — where we can help you.
Simply weather the storm or convert market upheaval to your competitive advantage. Whichever recession strategy you choose, we can help you come out ahead.