How To Recession Proof Your Business By Refining Your Marketing Activities

TO SPEND OR NOT TO SPEND - that is the question of the day. Where is the best place to invest my marketing dollars? These are dollars, once spent, cannot be reclaimed unless there is net sale. Right? Or, to put it bluntly, what's done is done.

So the question of whether or not to spend your precious dollars is being posed in countless marketing departments today. Those who have profitable results from previous campaigns can help direct future spending. The following quote summarizes this point very nicely:

"Marketing's pressure does not just come from having to justify their budget, but also in the fact that theirs is often the first budget cut during any economic downturn. With many forecasting 2008 as one of those years it will be vital that marketing manage their limited spend and get the most value from it. The best way this can be done is to rely on your past campaign reporting to show you which medium or tactic worked best in helping you reach the stated objective.

Having your reporting serve as your guide will prevent you from making the same mistake twice and will enable you to hone the most effective parts of your previous campaigns and develop a consistent, repeatable process for generating leads. Companies that do not have an internal reporting or management process in place will find it difficult to manage the funds appropriately but should embark immediately on tightening up their reporting and lead management process."

Carlos Hidalgo
The Annuitas Group

Slashing your marketing dollar budget could actually do you more harm than good. With limited dollars available to spend, the better off you will be to target and assess each program and how investing in this or that program could have significant impact on expenditures and anticipated gains.

Here are some questions for company discussion regarding your marketing project:

- Establish if there any ROI or ROO figures for this campaign? Use these as a marker for your marketing dollar investments.

- What was your best marketing campaign last year? Or the previous? Or any year in your company history?

- If you've already established a budget, what will that budget (based on each project assessment) effectively buy?

- What program for investment yields the biggest return - "bang for the buck?" Was it a direct mail campaign or going to a trade show?

- What marketing investment would most profitably assist the sales channel? Is there a trade show in a certain geographic location that matches your customer base?

Here is an example to consider - normally on a 50,000 direct mail campaign, you would send the entire amount out at one time. In this environment, send out the campaigns in smaller amounts - 10,000 or 15,000 and see what the results are. After the review, send out the rest of the names.

Current customers are your first obligation. What additional product or service offerings do you have that they might need or require? Ask: how can we get more of our services into our current customers? What kind of information do they need to make a purchase decision? Once you have determined this then do your best to provide it.

Creative juices should be flowing by now and a plan of immediate action can be initiated. Each stage of the marketing activities should be assessed to make certain the results will be there after the marketing dollars are spent.