STOP Marketing… and Think

I conduct a monthly executive dialogue with members of the Retail Merchants Association in Virginia. Business owners attend a lunch session that we call Smart Marketing, and I have the chance to watch and counsel them in their responses to our ailing economy. These days, the decision making patterns of most of them is so consistent that I find it hard to contain myself.

When the economy slows down, the ad sales people crank up.

Like your stock broker who started telling you what a great time it was to buy… buy… buy on the day after the market dropped 777 points, people selling advertising of all kinds are telling marketers that this is the time market like crazy.  The rationale – this is your chance to gobble up market share while your competitors wallow in self-pity.

Don’t take the bait. While there are cases in which it actually does make sense to increase your marketing investment when times are slow, this is far from a good rule of thumb – especially in this downturn. (more…)