It’s fair to say most businesses have been through the ringer the past couple of years. We’ve gone through a global pandemic, have supply chain issues, and experienced incredible changes to the workforce. When times are uncertain, it’s natural for businesses to look for areas where they can cut costs, and marketing is often one of the budget areas that gets cut. That is a mistake. Most businesses can NOT afford to cut their marketing budgets in uncertain times. As Entrepreneur reports, “Slashing your marketing budget won’t help your business, it’ll slowly kill it. “
A recent article from Harvard Business Review agrees. They suggest rather than slashing your marketing budget, look for ways to use your marketing dollars more efficiently. One item suggested to “zero out inefficient spend and ways of working.” We all have processes in our businesses that have come from years of habits. It’s worth taking a step back and re-evaluating which of those processes are efficient. Rather than merely cutting budgets, it’s worth cutting projects or patterns which haven’t yielded results. This evaluation can also help us be more flexible, and able to pivot in times of crisis.
To put it in sports terms, we need to stay in the game. When one company cuts their marketing budget, it’s an opportunity for a competing business to amp up their marketing efforts, to go after customers and clients the first company is leaving by standing on the sidelines.
But it’s not enough to just stay in the game. It’s important to play the game well. That means taking a look at what you do well and focusing on those key points. When the economy is soaring, it’s a great time to experiment. When you’re buckling down, focus on what your business does well and market those strengths. As Entrepreneur states, marketing initiatives such as blog posts are “…the superglue of sticky marketing and PR levers. Because they do last so long and they are customer-facing, this tool is an excellent to keep going.”
It all comes back to quality. It’s often necessary to tighten budgets in tough times, but not at the expense of the quality of what you do best, and at the expense of promoting what you do best. Tough times can be a real opportunity. When one business cuts their marketing budget, savvy competitors step up and seize the moment to show off what they can do.
