The downturn and marketing

• April 02, 2008

By Danny Sullivan

I’ve recently been working with a client on the development of article discussing the economic downturn and how companies can profit by investing in customer-facing activities during this period, rather than the usual approach of cutting back in these areas.

The article isn’t going to appear for a while, but I wanted to raise the topic now, as it’s one that affects PR and marketing people directly.

Many of us who worked in this business during the years when the tech bubble burst will have stories to tell about the hacking and slashing of marketing budgets that were, in many cases, first in the line of fire. Unfortunately, marketing is often viewed as an area of business that doesn’t have enough impact on the bottom line to prevent the hatchet falling heavily on it.

But in the article I’ve been working on, my client references data showing that companies that chose to increase their investment in marketing during previous downturns actually vastly outperformed those companies that cut or maintained marketing budgets, once the economy started to recover.

It’s an interesting topic, and I’m sure it’ll be of even more interest as marketing and PR departments start making the case for their budgets in the face of the downturn.

Of course, I’ll refer back to the article when it’s published so you can all check it out for yourselves (some time in May).