Marketing Ideas Sharing in the Recession

Greetings All,

Hope your Dec start with full of joy.

Since Thailand political crisis started on last Tuesday and two airports closed down, everyone who are living in this country don’t had a good week, especially those foreign tourists who are still stranded here! By the time of writing, the number of foreign tourists in Thailand has reached 240,000. According to the news, the toll will continue to rise daily due to lots of them reach the end of their holidays.

Suddenly, the friendliest land of smile got into the list of world top 20 most dangerous places to visit! That is really sad news and it is indeed very bad international image! I feel very sorry for what happened to this country as well as to those businesses that heavily depend on the tourists, export and manufacturing. Employees who are working in these sectors are facing greater risks of unemployment.

Well, let’s go back to this week’s newsletter, this is one of these days I sit down at my keyboard and ask myself, “What is the most important thing I can tell my readers today?”

I understand that with so much email coming your way everyday, I thank you for taking the time to read this. It is my hope to meet more of my readers and customers in 2009, it also my hope to get connected with you and hope you get something good from every newsletter I write and something you can use.

I don’t know about you, for me, every time when I write a newsletter, I want to come up with something that will capture people’s minds and hearts, so they will continue reading. It is not good to lose anyone before I have made my point.

As you know, I am not a copywriter and I’m not trained in the ways of the Jedi, such as John Carlton or David Garfinkel. Copywriting is such an art for them and I admire them.

For me, I just like to keep it real. I won’t feel bad to let you know that sometime I actually struggle with the right words to say. I don’t want my newsletter to become just another piece of writing in the crowd.

I want to communicate that I am real person that really cares about you and your success. I want to share my vision for what I believe is possible for you in your business and your life. And I want to get your attention so you don’t miss out on opportunity. I want to you be success, ultimately, your success is my success.

This week I want to share with you the discussion that I had on the LinkedIn with other marketing professionals. They are from different places around the world and sharing their ideas and opinions. Those are the great information which you won’t find anywhere else.

Okay, here is my question:

Will you maintain or increase or reduce investment in your marketing activities or campaign? – The knee-jerk reaction for most companies when faced with the recession is to reduce their marketing efforts, what do you think? If you are the head of the company, what will you do?

Here are the answers:

1. It depends on the sector. If you are marketing card readers to banks, don’t bother. In our sector, health, it is an opportunity to expand, increase efforts. – Craig Rawlings

2. In my field, I’m concentrating in my local city & county. Using weekly and monthly’s magazines to promote my book. I was considering an ad in the NY Times on a national scale in their book-review section but it cost $5,000 for a single run and I’m not doing the numbers to warrant that…nor is there available stock online. – John Thomas

3. Good question, Ann. I think both Craig and John make excellent points: re-examine (and re-adjust as necessary) the industry sectors you’re targeting (where is the money still being made?) and hone in geographically. For many (though not all) businesses, there’s a comfort level in working with companies closer to home – and these clients often are less expensive to market to and work with. Spend the marketing dollars more smartly – whether the budget be bigger, smaller or equivalent to last year. – Jill Marquardt

4. Ann – In my field of marketing and communications on behalf of a private investment firm and two of its operating companies (software firm and a managed IT firm), we are continuing to shift dollars into e-marketing avenues and away from print advertising and other traditional vehicles. Our software company (loan servicing software for lenders and loan servicers) is likely to increase its spend on PPC and SEO in 2009. The IT services firm has never had a large or meaningful marketing budget but is now directing most of those dollars toward online (instead of trade shows and conferences).

Meanwhile, the parent, private investment firm is shifting (a little more slowly) a greater percentage of marketing dollars toward online, including new website, a wiki-based intranet and potentially a wiki-based extranet for partners and affiliates. Overall, our organization will likely spend less in 2009 on marketing but a will see a greater concentration of dollars toward the online world. – Tom Kennedy

5. Great question, Ann. I own my own copywriting firm and I plan to drastically increase my marketing efforts. Many companies are letting their creative staff members go in order to save money on benefits and salaries. However, they do still have copywriting needs. In my field, this is the perfect time to expand marketing efforts.

I’ll be contacting potential clients in very specific niches and offering specials. I’ll also be spending more time developing my Web site to make it into something that “pulls” potential clients in (instead of having to actively market to them all the time). I’ll also be publishing a series of e-books related to surviving the recession and making them available as free downloads from my site. I’ve also downloaded the Box application to my LinkedIn profile to make the download available to everyone in my LinkedIn network. – Leigh Zaykoski

6. Hello Ann….as everybody said, good question In my expertise I would focus the marketing investment on a campaign where I can get return of investments to the cent (like marketing online campaigns), and to get knowledge where I put the money. – Gonzalo Alonso

7. We’re moving from expensive print advertising to more online. So while we are cutting marketing budget- we’re hoping to get more ROI through online. – Amber Pizano

8. We are doing the same as Amber. Cutting print and moving to more online, email, etc. – Lisa Leverich

9. We will likely increase our spend, allocate it differently and be more critical of ROI. It is so funny, there is what we all know we want to do or should do during times like this when it may be less crowded but then there is the reality of budgets and fear at the very top. – Mark Paggioli

10. Ann – what we have realized of late is that there should be visibility of outcome for all the marketing efforts done by us.. the clients themselves are more forceful in asking for ROI in traditional form of advertising..i think recession will be a great opportunity for online marketers and companies to unleash the potential of on line advertising. – Manirangan Seetharam

11. Over here everything seems to be frozen. All the companies entered in a stand by stage and waiting for the things to happend. Major companies are letting their people go and for sure marketing budgets and investments decreased. This is only the begining. – Andreea Ene

12.Most companies have or are planning to cut back on marketing expenditures because they are are too focused on short-term sales results to commit to acquiring marketshare during an economic downturn.

Additionally, budgets are being reallocated to outsourcing, as more full time staff is let go, and eMarketing, as traditional platforms continue to be unable to prove ROI (which doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t provide it).

13. The silver lining of this economic downturn is that more organizations will become meritocracies and those marketing professionals and marketing campaigns that are the best, will rise to the top and succeed. – Sean Gharavi

14. Ann a good question, in my industry IT Software services, generally the Marketing costs have traditionally been low. However, in the challenged economic climate with the whole bunch of IT service providers chasing few deals, what sets us apart is the brand differentiation and we are investing in building a strong brand image. So for the next few quarters you will see a more visible and targetted marketing efforts from IT companies. Though the focus here will be on increasing ROI, which translates to more online activities as against the traditional print based campaigns. – Neera Kishore

15. I agree with much that has been said. It is time to make what we have work harder, maximum ROI is what we are all after. These times force us to hone our skills, use PR and more economical marketing methods to the max and leave to one side the least efficient of our efforts.

At such times I am grateful for measurement. The fact that I have measured everything means I know where I am going and means I can leave my wasted energy projects behind. It is a time for skill and out of this will rise those people and companies who have used what they have wisely, creatively and effectively. As to spend? It will be pretty much the same. – Lesley Cutts