Marketing In Today's Reality, Maybe.

While we have just opened the doors at E:35 Creative, this is not our first rodeo. In my previous job I met with the owners, managers, an decision makers of SMB's every day. We are talking about the people that make up the back bone of our national economy. These are the people that hold local dollars and local jobs in the palm of their hands. Especially in Spokane and many cities like it, where there is no big conglomerate feeding us with jobs. Local business owners mean more in these types of areas than anywhere else. For the first time in my career I'm finding that they are scared to part with their hard earned advertising dollars.

There seems to be a misguided idea that the consumer no longer exists. Whether the product or service is for individuals or to be sold to other companies, many local owners are stuffing their marketing dollars under their mattress. Hoping to ride out the storm and get back into the marketing game when the economic climate looks a little more "70 degrees and sunny" and less "48 degrees, with a 94% chance of rain, for the next 67 weeks." I constantly hear the people say things like "lets wait and see what the election is going to do" or "I've cut my marketing dollars, this year, I just can't afford it." They say these things after driving to our meeting in $45,000 Audi, or in the same breath they talk about the Cost Rican vacation they are planning for next month. Don't get me wrong, business owners work incredibly hard, they have every right to enjoy the fruits of they're labor. But what they need to realize that every study I've ever read has stated, in a nut shell, "those that have the guts to continue marketing in a down economy, wins." Check out this article . It's one of many.

If we use a little deductive reasoning we realize that this is in fact the case. Does your target audience disappear? No, there may be fewer of them, but they do not go away.  What happens when there is greater competition for a particular audience? Who wins? The answer is easy... the company that has the intestinal fortitude to stay in front of their audience. This is not to say that marketing strategies don't change in times like these. They do. Business owners need to make sure they are spending on something that works, they need to make sure every marketing decision they make has a measurable return on investment. There has to be less throwing money against the wall and hoping it sticks and more making your marketing company show you real numbers, not just fancy billboards.

The internet is the great equalizer when it comes to marketing. Virtually everything a business owner will do there, marketing wise, can be measured. You no longer have to take that wink and smile from your advertising rep who says "trust me it's working." When your bottom line isn't reflecting it the same way his pearly whites reflect your confused face as you ink your signature to another year of hoping for the best.

I agree with the notion that business owners need to have some level of nervousness when parting with hard earned marketing dollars, especially now. But to make themselves less visible to a consumer audience that has certainly decreased in numbers could be the last bad decision they get to make.