Kate Betts Blog

We all know that 2012 is going to be a tough year…. and lots of you will be thinking about cutbacks. One of the first areas you might think of cutting back is the marketing budget. After all you have to buy the raw materials and pay the rent, the utility bills and the staff, but who needs to spend all that money on marketing?

You – that’s who.

If I don’t know your goods or services exist how can I buy them?

If your competitor is still out there telling the world about their goods and services I will go to them. Even if I am an old customer I may wonder if you still exist and then I read about your competitor so I go there instead.

There’s a saying: “When times are good, you should advertise. When times are bad, you MUST advertise.” It comes from research in America in the early 1980s that showed that companies that did not cut their advertising budget during a recession did better during the recession and after than those that did.

The smart thing to do is to see if you can do the advertising and marketing differently. Maybe you can cut the budget by using different ways of getting yourself “out there”. Are you using social media? Is your website up to scratch and your SEO sorted? Are you sending press releases out to the media?

You don’t need to spend loads of money on traditional advertising or mailshots. These days you can do it cheaper and more effectively. Editorial coverage has far more credibility than adverts anyway and it’s free!

Make 2012 the year you re-think your marketing. Times are changing, marketing needs to change too. But whatever you do, don’t stop telling people you exist.