Many small businesses react to a recession by pulling back their advertising in an effort to cut costs. Unfortunately, this can have disastrous effects on your marketing efforts. If you can at all afford it, this is exactly the time to ramp up your advertising. Or, at the very least, maintain your spending levels.
Why? Because as your competition pulls back, this is the time to grab market share. And at a time of deep recession, it’s impossible to grow your business by relying on an expanding marketplace. Instead, you grow your business by grabbing market share from your competitors.
And how do you do that? By increasing or maintaining your advertising efforts. This increases your brand awareness and keeps your name top-of-mind. There’s a long-term effect as well. When the market turns around and starts heading into growth mode, you will be better positioned to take advantage of that now expanding market.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you should start making reckless advertising decisions. Now more than ever you need to be smart about how you spend your advertising dollars, and see them for what they are – an investment. And invested wisely, you’ll see a return on those dollars.
- Bob
