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How do you market in tough times?

Take advantage of the opportunity. 

Economic downturns are Darwinian events in the marketplace.

The weak perish and the strong and agile survive – and even thrive.  In the present downturn some companies will disappear or be swallowed up by rivals. Others will emerge stronger than ever....

...Cut advertising? When Netflix began to make really serious inroads into Blockbuster's customer base in 2005, Blockbuster cut its $154.2 million advertising budget to $44.7 million. No surprise that Netflix grew from 4.2 million subscribers then to 7.1 million now. How'd the ad cut work out for Blockbuster? In 2007, they closed 500 stores and saw a $33.4 million profit turn into a $125 million loss through the third quarter. So what did they do to turn things around? They cut 16% more out of advertising in the last quarter.

So what should a marketer do?  Take advantage of the opportunity.  Yes, the opportunity.

To quote The Wall Street Journal, ". . . companies that maintain or increase their advertising spending during recessions get ahead. A less crowded field allows messages to be seen more clearly, and that increased visibility results in higher sales both during and after a recession."

A study by the American Business Press Association showed that companies that maintained their advertising spending during  downturns enjoyed average sales increases of 22% and average profit increases of 16% even during the difficult economic times.  When  the economy bounced back, they had a significant lead over their competitors. 

Although The Wall Street Journal and the American Business Press Association share a strong interest in maintaining advertising spending, the Harvard Business Review doesn't. And its study had the same results...

GOALS...

Well it is already the beginning of January - Do you know where your goal plan is?

It's easy to get excited about setting new goals for the new year - the new year is like a clean slate all ready for us to write our intentions on. But time flies and the next thing you know you're back at work and doing the laundry and here come the excuses!

"I didn't have time to write my goals"

"I know what I want (translated it's still floating around in my head) I just have to sit down and write it out"

"No I haven't gotten around yet to chunking out all the actions for my intentions - I'll do that this weekend (unless something comes up!)"

Stop making excuses and commit to taking 5 minutes to BEGIN.  Please notice I did not say "to do the entire thing" - I said to BEGIN!  

Materials needed: (even gathering the materials can be chunked into 5 min tasks!)

Poster board or cardboard or you can even use a closet door or mirror - no excuses about having to go to the store, use what ever flat surface is available.

Sticky notes or cut up some paper and get some tape - you'll need quite a few.

BEGIN:

Take your 3 or 4 top goals for 2009 and write them on a sticky (one goal per sticky so you'll have 4) - Put them on your board or mirror or whatever you're using.

Brain dump: Just start writing all the parts & pieces to making go into completing that goal.  Each thought gets a separate sticky.  Don't worry about putting them in order - just capture the thoughts as they come to you and put them on the board.  When you're done you should have dozens of sticky's under each goal.

You're done for now!  That might have taken you 10 minutes but heck you were probably having fun and time flew by!

Remember - you're taking action towards your goals ANYTIME you spend 5 minutes doing something that hits your target!