Strategic Aggressive Marketing – Quintessential for your Success in 2009

In a recession, marketing tends to be the first victim of budget cuts when, in reality, it is the most important tool a business has during this difficult time. Current economic downturn leaves many businesses wondering where they can cut costs.

Studies consistently have proven that companies that have the intelligence and guts to maintain or increase their overall marketing and advertising efforts in times of business downturns will get the market share from their timid competition.

Understand the value in marketing consistently

Marketing is an essential function to any business it is also lifeline to surviving a recession. Through marketing, your business can reach new customers and gain sales from previous customers. Therefore, marketing is an investment (not an expense).

Have the guts to be more aggressive on marketing front

Being aggressive does not mean throwing money at every marketing facet available. It is important to take a strategic approach and spend more but spend wisely. It does take guts to spend more when the outlook is gloomy but it has been proven to pay off.

Consider Marketing Outsourcing

If you are inexperienced in marketing or if you are looking to reduce fixed expenses it is best to outsource marketing to someone who is strategic, creative, and has proven results and can do it at a lower investment. These days you can outsource to countries seven seas across which can do a much effective job.

Closely Measure Results

Measure results as they are key components during hard times. Sorry magazines and print, but if you don’t offer reporting and tracking you are down in the dumps in 2009 and going forward.

Diversify Marketing Spend

It is also important to take a strategic approach when you diversify your marketing budget. For example, if you are currently investing the majority of your marketing efforts in a Pay-per-Click Campaign, You might want to segment part of it for email campaigns.

Focus on Improving Conversions

Increasing conversions is one step closer to increasing sales. Typically, increasing conversion rates from 4% to say 8% is much easier than doubling your traffic.

Good Luck and God Speed..

An injection of positive energy is just what's needed

Everyone is getting tired of the whining about the meltdown. An injection of positive energy is just what's needed now. Having worked through two recessions, I see that a full-blown recession is yet to happen. But is it really coming? The last one after September 11th was really nasty with too many bankruptcies and lawsuits.
Things are going to get a hell of a lot worse or a hell of a lot better and it will all be down in the end to our mood and the steps we all take now. No government can push us out of recession and it may be that we are in it for the long haul. Anyway, Why should Governments bail out ill managed Financial and Auto firms. It is preposterous that these big fat companies which don’t share their profits are ready for government bailout at the first glimpse of trouble. I think it will only make sense for these big but not so energetic companies to fail and give opportunities for smaller firms to rise up the charts. It is of course, a free economy and the toughest should survive.
Any turnaround will only come from lots of people making small decisions. From a marketing perspective these small decisions could be pushing out a new direct mail or email campaign. But each decision needs a result and the better the results the faster things will start to change and confidence grows. But we’ll all be demanding better. Marketers need to produce better ROI so as to encourage clients to invest more into this facet and revive their organizations.
Isn’t the time right now to get hungrier, work on getting the basics right and get great at what we’re good at? So if it’s true that recession and hard times can be the mother of invention, and much of the greatest companies have grown from tough times, it’s going to be interesting what’s going come out of B2B sales and marketing in 2009.

Tough Times don't Last, But Intelligent Organizations Do

Tough Times don't Last, But Intelligent Organizations and Well Planned Champions Do. You can actually gain market share (may be not revenue) while others are Shrinking.

As we head in to 2009, Things might look a tad bit gloomy with pink slips and pay freezes. Innovative organizations are thinking of newer ways of revenue generation as the good old things you did in 2008 will yield less than 50% of your revenue in 2009. Together as a well planned cohesive team, Organizations should meticulously draft the 2009 charter and game plan. "Execution" and "Weekly Reviews" is going to be the key differentiator once you have the plan for 2009 drafted.

Understand the Personal Goals of your key executives and work towards assisting them with achieving those as well while they work towards ensuring Business Goals are achieved. It is time to show we care for each associate and not just their sales/marketing goal achievement.

Here are a few quotes that I found worth sharing as you begin the journey into the 2009

"Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right" (Henry Ford) -THINK YOU CAN & MAKE IT HAPPEN IN 2009

"Never worry about action, but only about inaction" (Winston Churchill) -START ACTION NOW IN JANUARY 2009, Don't wait

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" (Albert Einstein) -THERE WILL BE A LOT OF NAYSAYERS & MEDICORE MINDS - YOU CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN WITH YOUR FOCUS

May this year be the best year of your life!
Happy 2009!