Thinking of Cutting Back? Don’t.

In this new economy, many companies are cutting their marketing budgets down to fractions of their former levels.  Unfortunately, when top line sales dip, bottom line expense items that are seen as non-necessities (such as advertising and training) are the first to go.  Pulling back on marketing and advertising spending severely decreases your visibility to potential customers who have more places to spend their money than ever before.  You don’t want to go invisible- you need to try to be even more present in the market place. The push to reserve capital is understandable during a downturn, but the benefit of continued spending on these items should be viewed as investments that are going to pay off in a few short years.  To give an example, in 1981, a McGraw-Hill research study of over 600 businesses found that business that maintained or increased their ad spend during the recession averaged higher sales growth during the down turn and in the following three years.  By 1985, the sales of the businesses that maintained or increased their ad spend during that recession had risen 256% over those that had cut back on advertising. The lesson here is that NOW is the time that market share is either lost or won.  Those who continue to invest in their marketing programs will be the ones standing in “tall cotton” when the economy rebounds.   Give us a shout at Onyx Group to discuss working on a strategic marketing plan to be one of the businesses that reaps those returns in the coming years.