Increasing Marketing Costs During an Economic Downturn
Online reference website Juggle.com recently sent out a press release stating that it spent more on marketing than ever before – despite the economic downturn – and that its aggressive advertising strategy appears to be working.
Nice to know – but the motivations and reasons that Juggle.com gives for its strategy of increased spending, provide some interesting views on advertising during an economic downturn in general.
As a starter Juggle.com refers to an older study by McGraw-Hill that analyzed 600 business-to-business companies and concluded that businesses who continued to advertise during the 1981-1982 recession enjoyed over 2.5 times the growth compared to competitors that decreased spending during the same time period.
But there’s more.
Keep Your Business Vision Alive
The problem with many small business owners is that when they get started they’re all gung-ho and working hard, but after they reach some disappointment, they lose sight of their vision and often stop trying as hard. To run a successful business, it is essential to keep your vision alive.
The first step in keeping your vision alive is to have a clear vision in the first place. If you haven’t already, try sitting down and writing a clear vision statement, for your business and yourself. Think about why you started your business, and what you hope to achieve.
While it’s important to have a vision statement, you have to keep it in mind if you’re going to actually achieve it. Having an idea of what you want doesn’t really matter if you throw it in a drawer and only think about it once every six months. Try posting it somewhere in your office or having it written down where you will see it regularly.
Writing Publicity-Friendly Content
The content on your site is one of the best tools to attract traffic, customers, and even the attention of the media. If a reputable media outlet is going to print your article or refer to your business in theirs, it can go a long way towards establishing your brand and improving your overall search optimization ranking. What’s even better is that this is FREE publicity, likely in a publication that charges significant amounts of money for advertising slots. Here are a few suggestions on how to write content that attracts the media to your site.
1. This may go without saying, but your online content must be easy to read. Make sure the point of the content is clear and that the pages are formatted correctly. Journalists don’t have the time to sit and read articles on every single website they find to find print-worthy content. You may want to include subheadings, bullet points, lists, and more to make sure it is easy to follow and skim through, if necessary.
Building Your Online Business Profile
Marketing is crucial to the success or failure of any business, no matter which industry or sector. Without a steady stream of customers, just simply surviving can be a real challenge – particularly with the current economic climate. For those looking to thrive through the recession, it is essential to establish lead generation and sales processes that give you the most bang for your buck and provide your business with tangible long-term returns.
Working on the promotional side of your business – doing things such as brand building exercises, direct response marketing, and streamlining your conversion funnel – can be a steep and expensive learning curve. But if you know what you need to do, particularly online, to get your voice heard, you should immediately see the benefits of effective marketing in your overall bottom line.
Benefits of Email Marketing
Email marketing is perhaps the most cost-effective direct marketing method, enabling marketers a degree of targeting along with the luxury of full tracking and analytics to measure and tweak results. By allowing direct delivery of targeted marketing message to voluntary recipients, an email marketing campaign can ensure business owners a solid ROI and deliver high-margin revenue. It also allows for the possibility to test new ideas and closely track metrics. As a result, email marketing remains an increasingly popular form of direct marketing among online business consultants and business owners alike, with growth far outstripping other marketing channels.
