SMEs - that recession needs more attention than you thought

The recession is an event that forces businesses to review many aspects of the business. Unfortunately, many businesses see this as a an opportunity to cut staff and expenses. As stated before, you cannot save your way out of trouble, you have to sell your way out.

However sales is a part of the marketing function, and marketing should be reviewed extremely carefully. The intention of the review practice is not to try and reduce marketing costs, but rather to evaluate how the marketing budget is spent.

Do not reduce your marketing efforts. During a recession it is critical that you maintain your marketing efforts. I recently had a discussion with a retailer who was marketing using newspaper advertising. He had no idea who the target markets were for each newspaper, and consequent to our discussions and his subsequent investigations, he found that he was advertising in the wrong newspaper.

So do a careful review of the marketing channels you are using. Evaluate your systems for assessing the success of each advertisement and ensure that the advertisements are having the desired and intended effect. Are the advertisements designed to achieve their intended goal? Is it a brand building advertisement or is it intended to generate sales? Do you know and is it appropriate? Make every spend work for you!

Dr Rob Smorfitt