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• Will Your Decision be The Kiss of Death for Your Company

Will Your Decision be The Kiss of Death for Your Company

written on July 27, 2009 by Dan Cricks

 

The kiss of death is cutting your marketing budget during a tough economic time!!!  The last difficult time that we had (9/11) I was more aggressive with marketing in my bricks and mortar business and gained a tremendous market share while others in my industry were going out of business.

I spoke with the marketing manager of a company that we had consulted with for years, when the recent economic news came out the owners decided to cut marketing.  The marketing manager reported the effects were felt within 2 weeks.  She decided it was time to look for work, good decision!

I recently had a case of a client I used to consult with decided to cut back and not spend the money on our services.  He called a few months later to say that it was one of the worse decisions he had ever made.  His business suffered hugh losses in sales because of it.

In many cases an economic downturn will create opportunities, you must keep an open mind to be able to see where in your business they may be, and be able to take advantage of them.  Without a marketing budget this isn't possible.

"Consider, for example, that in a good economy the vacation and videogame industries do not compete with each other," says Jagpal.  "In a bad economy, consumers may have no option but to forgo vacations.  But to compensate for this loss, they may reward themselves with a small, affordable purchase such as a videogame.  And that's why it's important to pay attention to shifts in consumer spending - if you're a videogame maker, you may well benefit from a dramatic increase in your marketing right now."

Before you, the hypothetical videogame maker, can achieve such a feat, you must first get your marketing and finance departments working together rather than clashing against each other.  It's no secret that finance people typically wield the cost-cutting blade while marketing people are perceived as free-spenders who have a tough time quantifying their ideas.  Fortunately, says Jagpal, common ground does exist.

"When these two groups stop talking at each other, when they get out of their functional silos and start working together, they can create marketing strategies that help an organization thrive even in the grimmest economy," he notes.  "But that means Finance must squelch its knee-jerk reaction to cut the marketing budget, and Marketing must learn to create metrics that demonstrate the bottom-line impact of their ideas."

In other words they must track the marketing that they do and know what the results are, no matter what media they use!  This will help when it comes time to see what the ROI (Return on Investment) is when it comes to marketing.  This is information you must know, it is information that management and the finance dept must have to do their job responsibly.

Dan Cricks, Results Marketing, LLC

Dan is an author and marketing & business consultant to many different professionals and types businesses.  He currently has clients from all over North America and Australia.  Dan speaks to many different groups locally and nationally, including business groups such as Chamber's of Commerce and different associations.  Dan also will sometimes offer marketing seminars for these same groups.  For more information contact Dan's assistant Alicia at 937-430-5651 or for a FREE report about marketing for any business go to http://www.greatresultsmarketing.com/ or http://www.nobscleveland.com/