Marketing in a down economy

It is not surprising that when asked, most B2B executives assume the first department to be hit (given the state of the economy) is marketing. What is surprising, however, is the actuality that only 13% of B2B organizations (surveyed by Marketing Sherpa) indicated a plan to cut marketing first. While 13% is still a large number, this presents a huge opportunity for the other 87% of organizations to take advantage of the budgetary spend and make the most of marketing in this down economy. 

Top 5 key trends to marketing in a down economy

1. Tactical budgets are shifting:·      

WHAT IS HOT

• Web 2.0 – 48% of B2B marketing indicated that they plan to increase marketing activities to include Web 2.0 and social media plans to their budgets.

• No change in telemarketing – while telemarketing is still an old-fashioned way of generating leads, the budget for telemarketing is hardly seeing a change. 18% of B2B individuals in fact indicated that they plan to increase telemarketing spend.

• Email to your house list – There is a 48% increase in email when the email is sent directly to your house list. Make sure you have a proper email marketing campaign in place and that it is focused on the pains your customers are facing. 

WHAT IS NOT

• Renting a list is a bad choice – With the talk of quality over quantity, it is no surprise that renting a list has become a lost cause. Marketing Sherpa found a 43% decrease in budgetary spend with outsourced lists (from a 3^rd party source). If you need a new list, plan on spending more money and go for a quality list that you can keep than renting one for a quick one-off campaign.

•  Events are down – Travel costs have risen so much in the last year that there is a 57% decrease in budgetary spend regarding event marketing. Take our advice… plan a webinar instead.

•  Direct mail –With email marketing and Web 2.0, it was only a matter of time before direct marketing became almost extinct. With a 52% decrease is marketing spend; you may want to think twice before sending a post card. 

2. Virtual Training is a must – as mentioned before, the cost of travel has become so high that many marketing and sales professionals are shifting the way they do their business. In fact, 28% of organizations indicated that they plan on shifting in person training to virtual web-events. This has cut the cost of travel significantly while also maintaining the need for customer service.

3. Are you outsourcing? – Hiring is always a challenging time, especially when there is a need but no budget to back up a full time person. This is probably why 25% of companies surveyed indicated that they plan on moving more marketing activities to an outsourced marketing firm.

4.  Your sales cycle has shifted – One of the top trends in marketing in the current economy is to pay attention to your sales cycle and track how this has changed. A large number of companies are being hit by less money coming in and therefore have much less going out. Because of this more and more companies are taking more time to make decisions on budgetary spending. Some key trends with sales cycle shifting are as follows:

• 41% of organizations have seen a significant lengthen in the sales cycle
•  27% of organizations have a lower average purchase per person
• 25% of organizations have a lower number of new customers per month 

5.   Customer Service has never been more important – Customer service is the number 1 reason why organizations decide to leave a firm. This is why, at a time where the economy is a challenge, customer service has never been more important. Be sure that you have a highly effective team of customer service personnel on staff that are ready and able to work with your current client base at all times. In a down economy, it is not only important to market to leads, but also to market to your clientele.