Why “Increasing Marketing in a Downturn” is So Much Blather

Unlike most marketers, I don’t take it on faith that the best time to increase the marketing budget is during an economic downturn. I say that because too many chief marketing officers use that line to protect their budgets from the budget hackers.

In fact, many marketing programs in professional services should get hacked because they are ill-conceived. (Example: Fancy publications that don’t focus on a professional firm’s ideas, much image advertising, and most trade show booths.) Other undeserving programs may be worthy but are badly executed. Unless they are executed better, there’s no point in doing them.

In a downturn, marketing should scrutinize its programs and get rid of ones that aren’t working – i.e., aren’t generating real leads, market awareness (which can be measured in terms of press mentions, website visitors, white paper downloads and other metrics), or prospect inquiries. At the same time, marketing should then determine which programs are working.

Then marketing should increase its investments in the programs that work by reinvesting the dollars from the programs it killed.

Stop trying to defend your budget. Instead, determine what’s generating leads, market awareness, and prospect inquiries – and do more of it.

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