The most ridiculous statement!

[DLH Marketing]

If we go with the premise that marketing is about finding and developing the right customer and then satisfying those customers needs in order to grow then a statement from a businessman at a networking event this morning goes someway in explaining why British sme’s are often frustrating. I don’t want to say that the comment was stupid because that reflects on the speaker, I will however, be polite and say ill advised.
When, in answer to the question “so what do you do?” I replied about marketing support he came out with the classic – “we’re in a recession so we have reduced the marketing activity to help cut costs”
It happens every time we have a down turn, marketing (in this country) is always the first to face a cutback. I can never decide whether it’s a lack of understanding or just poor business sense but surely in a recession, whatever size your operation, the area you really need on your side is the area that helps you develop new and existing customers – namely MARKETING.
That doesn’t mean you have to throw money at it, you just need to be smart and make it work harder. Take a good look at where your marketing activities are focussed and look at all your communication material, make sure they are doing what you wanted them to do when you drew up your marketing plan. Speak to your staff and ensure that everyone knows what your strategy is and what their role in that strategy should be.
A patient will never get better if you cut his medicine so please don’t cut your businesses medicine just make sure the doseage is right.

 

[bdw]

You would not by any chance have a vested interest?

.

 

[DLH Marketing]

I have a vested interest in a successful UK economy! Wether or not I have a vested interest in the subject is irrelevent if the premise holds true.

 

[BobbyBoy]

This is probably a very good time to reduce spending on the marketing activities which are not producing results.

I'm a great believer in advertising and marketing, but I quickly stop spending on any marketing activity which does not produce a profit.

Now, more than ever, every marketing pound must be wisely spent.

Bobby

 

[directmarketingadvice]

If we go with the premise that marketing is about finding and developing the right customer and then satisfying those customers needs in order to grow then a statement from a businessman at a networking event this morning goes someway in explaining why British sme’s are often frustrating. I don’t want to say that the comment was stupid because that reflects on the speaker, I will however, be polite and say ill advised.
When, in answer to the question “so what do you do?” I replied about marketing support he came out with the classic – “we’re in a recession so we have reduced the marketing activity to help cut costs”

So he, who knows all about his business, thought this was a good decision. While you, who knows nothing about his business, thinks he's "stupid".

I suspect he's more likely to be right than you are. As Bobby suggested, he's realised that he's wasting some of his advertising spend and stopped those ads.

Marketers should show a bit more humility and not assume they know other people's businesses better than the business owners do.

I've met very few morons who have managed to stay in business for any length of time.

If that guy has been around for a while, he probably isn't stupid - he might not be smart about advertising, but he's probably not stupid.

Steve

 

[FunkyBears]

I would suggest reading Smart Marketing by John Mariotti he says;
You must have a plan
Get close to your customers
Do your homework
Remember relationships
Use the speed and reach of technology

In times of recession businesses do cut back on marketing but they need more business not less, rather than sling money at it they need to get smarter with their marketing, nothing stupid about that is there?

 

[Minuteman Press]

As folk have said - many marketing tactics - select the ones that offer the greatest ROI (time and money). If the net effect is a reduction in spend - great.

A sensible practive in recession and economic growth.

 

[bdw]

In times of recession businesses do cut back on marketing but they need more business not less, rather than sling money at it they need to get smarter with their marketing, nothing stupid about that is there?

I use this in my email signature ...

"In good times, people want to advertise; in bad times, they have to!" [FONT=&quot]Bruce Barton 1955

[/FONT]But then again you cannot spend money that you don't have.

.

 

[blue0510]

the biggest and best companies spend their way out of a recession and tend to grow market share at the same time, just look at your TV and Press advertising and see who is doing the most at this time

 

[Marta_K]

Most people consider buying ads, beautiful brochures, branding collateral as marketing expenses, and when they need to cut the costs, ads go first. Most often than not, they revert than to word of mouth, referrals or increasing orders form existing customers - but do not consider it as a marketing activity per se. So in fact, because of this narrowed definition of marketing (that mostly covers just branding, really), the person you spoke to, could have been actually smarter than you think and just focused on the marketing activities that do not require big cash outlay. I too, own marketing firm, and do not try to insult my customers for cutting the costs - more often than not, I actually tell them to ditch traditional yellow pages type ads and so on, get rid of flashy - flash website and just use less costly mini-sites with a great offer right in front the customers. If somebody says to me, they cut the marketing expenses, I would say: Fantastic! Would you like to know how to cut it further?

 

[Indivijewelistic]

I took advantage of the free listings on Yellow pages and a bunch of other sites. I also linked all my products to Google Merchant which put the website quite near the top even if you put in a broad search like Enfield Beads.

By far the most effective thing was asking the local paper to run an article advising them that I had no advertising budget at present. It was four months before the article appeared because I needed to wait until they had no news. But when it did it was a 3/4 page article with two photos in the Enfield Advertiser. It came out two months ago and people are still walking into the store and saying they saw my 'ad' in the local paper.

I also contacted jewellery making magazines and asked them to put my shop in their 'What's new page' and this is also boosting sales almost as much as the local paper article.

I think when I do have an advertising budget I will go for the nationally sold jewellery making magazine as it not obviously hits the target market but also raised sales on the website as well as the shop.

I don't think the business would have done so well without these articles and further advertising is at the top of my list, just under stocking the shop.

 

[simonr]

Hhhmmmm. I'm not sure the first thing that gets cut is marketing - I'd say it was training: but I'm a trainer so I would say that!

 

[Perfect Windows]

The strength of Kelloggs as a brand comes from the fact that during the great depression they upped their marketing budget massively while everyone else was cutting.

You need to have the cash to do it, of course...

 

[thecyclingartist]

For the past three years my business plan has said marketing, marketing, marketing. With the recession I increased my marketing.

Why is marketing necessarily ads? I don't think of it that way. I include advertising but also things like networking events, peer review and peer projects, better public access events, using social networking and online tools, distributing more and better press releases, putting out better newsletters to existing clients. I've increased my marketing a lot yet decreased my advertising budget.

Like others have said it's about ROI. Keep advertising that works, but ditch what doesn't. Ditto for marketing efforts. But surely that should be the way to work all the time, recession or not?

 

[TBTB]

In good times, customers come to you; in bad times, you have to go to your customer. Advertising works!

 

[haywarddavid]

Hhhmmmm. I'm not sure the first thing that gets cut is marketing - I'd say it was training: but I'm a trainer so I would say that!

Agreed... Marketing isn't the first thing to be cut, what a ridiculous statement! If any business is in a position where it needs to look at cutting costs then everything that isn't a fixed overhead is fair game and this will include things like Training, Marketing, IT Projects, Recruitment etc. Once they've explored everything and if they're really up against it, they'll even look at reducing their fixed costs too such as PAYE or Rent etc.

You tell us that he's said “we’re in a recession so we have reduced the marketing activity to help cut costs”... that's a perfectly acceptable statement isn't it? We are in a recession and reducing marketing activity most certainly will reduce his costs. All valid. He's not said we've cut our marketing activity to help increase sales; which I think is what you have heard!

Why didn't you see the massive opportunity... you are in Marketing and he's just told you that he spends money on Marketing! Why didn't you ask him how he went about reducing his marketing activity? How did he choose / prioritise which activities he would continue with and which he would cease / reduce? Was this decision made using his gut instinct or did he have accurate metrics such as lead conversion rates to see which were most successful and cost effective? You could have understood his decision making process and as an expert in this field, maybe you could have been able to help him make what marketing budget he does have more effective? Maybe you might have been able to stop him from making a mistake, shared your insights and proved yourself as a valuable and trusted advisor. You'd have secured a customer for life... after all I assume that right now he's not your customer, so even his smaller budget would be new incremental business for you.

Whilst I agree that some brands have been established as market leaders by increasing their marketing activity in hard times; please don't make the mistake of thinking that this is the one fool-proof method any and all businesses can adopt to see them through the recession! It's not going to work like that.

I could be completely wrong, but it seems to me like you approached this with a closed mind, prejudice and assumptions which I think you need to take some time to identify and challenge.

 

[jonmcculloch]

You tell us that he's said “we’re in a recession so we have reduced the marketing activity to help cut costs”... that's a perfectly acceptable statement isn't it? We are in a recession and reducing marketing activity most certainly will reduce his costs. All valid..

I think the problem is most people don't really seem to understand marketing. If they did, they'd not even dream of cutting back on it at any time (unless they're getting too busy, of course).

The purpose of marketing is to make money. If you're doing marketing that's not making money, then you shouldn't be doing it -- recession or no.

And if you're marketing and you don't know if it's making you money or not because you can't, don't or won't measure it... then you really shouldn't be doing that, either.

On the other hand, if you can measure and track your marketing and you're making a positive ROI why would you cut back on it? Why wouldn't you do more of it? Why would you even limit it with something as insane as an arbitrary marketing budget (like some people do)?

Granted you might have other reasons for not wanting the business the marketing is bringing in (ROI might be so small you're working for peanuts), but that's not really an issue to do with the recession specifically -- that's true at any time.

There was a woman on the Beeb website way back in late 2007. She was an estate agent and she said (I kid you not), "things are so bad we're cutting back on our advertising, even though it's the only thing bringing in any money". Which was a really, really, really stupid thing to say.

All that said (and I'm talking to the original poster now), it's not worth your while worrying about or even talking to business owners like that.

Nothing against them as people, but they're simply not in your target market, so why waste your time on them?

Warmly,

Jon

 

[BobbyBoy]

Advertising works!

That kind of statement makes you sound like an advertising sale rep .

SOME advertising works - many forms of advertising DONT work, or at least don't generate sufficient return on investment to justify the expense.

Finding the right kind of advertising is key - so to is monitoring response and looking at what is actually working for you.

Years ago most of my marketing budget went on leaflets - then our target audience changed and now most of our advertising budget goes on Online advertising.

I'll spend advertising money almost anywhere PROVIDING that I can see positive and measurable return - where many people go wrong though is that they spend their advertising budget not knowing what is giving them a return, in the blind hope that all advertising works - sadly it does not.

Marketing is just another business cost which needs to be monitored and kept under control - if its working, keep doing it, if not cut back and spend the money elsewhere.

Bobby

 

[jonmcculloch]

Marketing is just another business cost which needs to be monitored and kept under control - if its working, keep doing it, if not cut back and spend the money elsewhere

Exactly.

With the observation if it's making a profit, it's not really a cost -- it's an investment (I don't like that phrase because it's used by a lot of shysters, but it's true, nevertheless).

Warmly,

Jon

 

[Deancourt Design]

One of the frustrations that all marketeers find is that finance departments are too quick to denounce a marketing push a failure if it doesn't make a profit.

Now, I'm not saying that if you produce a press advertisement and it doesn't perform to the standard you've set, that you should carry on, but financial departments need to start thinking less about saving money, and more about getting customers to spend more money.

If that press advert didn't work, the finance departments are quick to say, "press advertising doesn't work - stop spending money - stop doing it".

What they fail to realise is that it's not 'press advertising' that doesn't work, it's 'the sales message' in that press ad that doesn't work. So think of a new one, and try again.

It's finding the creative angle that works, and continues to work that's key. You, as a company have to do something, because if you don't, your competitors surely will, and when the recession is passed, those customers will have forgotten you, and remember the brand that advertised the most - your competitor.

Unfortunately to do that, you have to continue to spend money. Some of that money will generate a profit, some of it may indirectly make a profit (in terms of strengthening your brand), some of it is money wasted.

To the frustration of FD's up and down the UK, marketeers can't tell finance beforehand which is which.