Marketing in a Slow Economy

It’s a brutal cycle. A down economy means sluggish sales. With revenues on the decline, companies look for areas to cut expenses and marketing budgets are prime candidates. But without marketing support sales fall even further, sending the business into a financial spiral that’s difficult to pull out of.

So how do you break the cycle in a slow economy? At Walker Sands, we believe it’s by continuing to invest in marketing regardless of external economic forces. At the same time, we’re sensitive to our clients’ need to make marketing dollars stretch farther than ever before. And that’s where our strategies for marketing in a slow economy really pay off.

Efficient Marketing Strategies

• Customer loyalty. These days, every customer counts. For businesses struggling to achieve growth, retaining current customers is just as important as bringing new customers in the door. The good news is that customer loyalty marketing initiatives are often less expensive than initiatives geared toward new customer acquisitions.
• Online marketing. Decreased consumer and B2B hasn’t been the only big marketing story over the past few years. During the same time period, online shopping and purchasing has grown in leaps and bounds. The benefit of online marketing is that it once your web assets are in place, they can reach a virtually unlimited number of prospects at a cost that is much lower than expanding, print ads, direct mail or other traditional marketing channels.
• Outsourcing. If you haven’t seriously considered outsourcing your PR, marketing and design needs, what are you waiting for? A sluggish economy is the perfect opportunity to transition to outsourcing because it’s significantly cheaper than maintaining in-house personnel not to mention the fact that outsourced providers can often generate outcomes that are superior to the outcomes produced by internal efforts.
• ROI analysis. At Walker Sands, we view marketing as an investment in your company. Like any investment, marketing needs to be measured and evaluated according to the return it brings to your business. With that in mind, we advocate ROI analysis of individual marketing channels as well as specific marketing campaigns.

In this economy, many businesses aren’t confident that their marketing dollars are being used effectively. Give us a call and let Walker Sands’ team of marketing professionals analyze your marketing program and design cost-effective strategies that are capable of conquering the challenges of today’s marketplace.