1. Are you trying to survive the recession or thrive in the recession?
2. Do you think sales will go up by cutting your marketing budget?
3. Do you want your competitor to gain the market share you’ve worked so hard to build?
4. Do you not believe that companies that maintain their marketing budget during a recession gain ground on companies that cut their budget?
5. Is it riskier to grow market share, stay the same, or shrink?
6. Are you going to get a bigger bonus because sales declined than you would if sales increased?
7. Where on your resume will you put a budget cut as a marketing accomplishment?
8. Are parts of your marketing plan ineffective?
9. Will you lose your job if you don’t?

Okay, if you’ll lose your job, cut. If parts of your marketing plan are ineffective, we should talk. But the path to being a marketing hero leads us to have courage in these stressful times. If you do have to cut you budget, we have a way to help you do that and salvage effectiveness. We call it Budget 2.0. It’s a planning session that turns marketing plans upside down and looks for breakthroughs. We’d love to take you through it. Give me a call at (515) 244-4456 or e-mail me.

An uncertain economy makes a sound brand and marketing plan essential.  We’re all concerned with how this economy will affect our businesses.  Here are some things you can do today to prepare for whatever happens.

1.    “Resultify” your marketing plan.

Spend your money on activities you know produce the results that you want.  We would audit your marketing plan and eliminate result-starved activities and point those dollars at things we know worked.  The final outcome would be a “resultified” marketing plan that will get past your CFO’s watchful eye.

2.    Audit the Brand

Make sure your brand is tightly focused and relevant to the audience.  A good way to cut costs is to cut those marketing activities that fall outside of your brand. We would review all communications and marketing materials for brand focus.  We would look for activities to consolidate and avoid waste and if there were activities that were no longer relevant in this economy we would cut them.

3.    Embrace the channel

If this economy has you worried, imagine what it’s doing to your sales channel.   Now is the time to hunker down with them and do things that work for them and you.  Focus on their results just as you focus on yours.  We would examine what you could do to help them succeed. 

As businesses, we don’t have control over Wall Street, the economy, or the elections. However, we do have control over what we plan for our businesses.  And, as an agency, we work with our clients to ensure those plans drive the best results possible. 

If your agency is not in a results-oriented mode, let’s talk.  If nothing else, let us ask our agency network to review your category from their experience free of charge.  Call or email us and let’s refuse to participate in this recession.