Previously, I advocated increasing, or at least not
decreasing, marketing budgets when financial problems are prevalent. Several networking
partners called and emailed regarding this opinion, suggesting some further clarification
to the previous comments.
When examining our marketing budgets, we should also examine
our marketing efforts.
We should also work
smarter not harder. Place those two statements side by side, and we
see that we should look at our marketing plans and see if we can improve on the
efficiency of what we are doing.
We must eliminate what we are doing that results in poor or
no business. If we keep making the same effort, with the same tools, what makes
us believe that we will not obtain the same poor results? Some people call that
insanity. Instead, how do we make the parts that work well work better?
Whatever we did that brought good results may be able to be
done more efficiently, with less expense, and easier than before. Just because
we got good results, doesn’t mean that we cannot get better results, or the
same results, with less expense or even less effort if we work smarter.
New technology may allow us to complete the same task with
which we struggled in the past to be done now with less effort and sometimes
less expense. What took multiple people to accomplish might now be done by one
person with better technology. What was unreasonable to spend on a marketing
effort may now be within the reach of more of us.
Perhaps we had a staff of personnel to take the steps to
market our business in the past. Now that we may not be able to afford that
staff anymore, we need to see what we can do by ourselves, or with a reduced
staff. Maybe we still have the same staff, but they need to be performing other
tasks. How can we, and they, work more efficiently and accomplish their other
tasks as well as our marketing efforts?
Remember what we said previously about businesses that
eliminate their marketing budgets or efforts. They literally vanish from the
view of their customers and prospects. Their customers move to other businesses
that are visible to the public. If our businesses lose their public presence, we
will lose the public’s support.
On the other hand, businesses that maintain their public
presence through increased or better focused marketing maintain their customers
and attract prospects. The public knows that they are still in business, still
viable in the marketplace. Those are the businesses that remain in business and
may even grow their market share.
Work smarter not harder should be applied to
everything that a business does, including marketing. Look at everything that we
do and examine how it can be accomplished differently. The two worst beliefs
are that any method that has never been tried before should not be attempted or
that we must always do something a certain way. Think outside the box, and use imagination.
Like my networking partners who contacted me after the
previous post, Gratitude Marketing results in business networking
relationships. These relationships provide support as well as questions. That
sharing and support should be answered with our gratitude. Please leave me your comments, or email me
at Jim@JimTeasley.com, or call me at 360-314-8691.