Recently the nice folks at Hubspot actually came up with something useful. They offered a free webinar on “Marketing During a Recession.”
For those of you who are unaware, the U.S. economy is going down faster than a hooker on Hemenway street. That’s a little Boston humor for you — crass, but clearly conveying a message. Anyway ….
The gist of the webinar is that marketing is your main tool for developing pipeline. Pipeline is salesy speak for leads — the people who want your product, but haven’t made the purchase. Sorry to over simplify, but hey, now that we’re all on the same page…
Your pipeline is critical to overall success. Messaging and reaching those folks is also critical. Consider the following: most folks make a decision after hearing about something at least 3 times. So as you cast out your proverbial net, how often can you net the same folks more than once? And as there’s a recession going on, and budgets are getting slashed, how can you do so efficiently and effectively?
The simple answer is that you can reduce costs by cultivating the connections that you’ve already started building. Create networks that allow to to capture people multiple times. Things like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Vimeo,Plaxo, and a host of other randomly capitalized (in the grammatical sense, not financial, alas…) online destinations are all free to use, lead-generating tools. Creativity doesn’t cost nearly as much as you’re spending bidding up keywords on GoogleAds.
Using me as the example, I’ve got a blog, Twitter acct, Facebook page, and MySpace page. Odds are I check ’em all at least once a day. If I see similar, interesting, catchy messages on each one, odds are, even at some subliminal level, I’ll react.
Folks used to ramble on about being the “thought-leader” for their product. While the term is rather Orwellian, it does make sense – especially now. Keeping yourself in the minds and consciousness of your pipeline helps convert leads to sales. And remember, the sole purpose of marketing is to build pipeline. More specificially, and contrary to the thoughts of many CEOs, marketing does not equate to sales. We humble marketing people are merely leading the horse to water. Whether or not he drinks isn’t up to us.
The path to this water is often murky and convoluted. And as such, during a recession, marketing is often the first cut to be made. CEOs seem to assume that marketing is just about spending money. Not true. But if you limited your marketing reach to specific areas (i.e. no SMO work, no SEO work, or worse, allow limited paths/methods) then who’s to blame? Reduction is natural, but outright cutting is beyond detrimental. If marketing is the predecessor to sales, why remove that necessary link in the chain? This would be silly, uninformed, and potentially damaging to your company.
I’ve been accused of overspending and under analyzing multiple times. That being said, in each endeavor where all the arms/techniques of marketing are allowed to perform, I’ve driven site traffic and leads through the proverbial roof. As margins and budgets shrink, so should those for marketing. We’re not “above” funding cuts. But before you think we’re just about the free lunch, realize what’s actually on the line.
