Trimming Fat? But it's almost Christmas!

O.k. so I am not talking about diet plans as the title might suggest, but it is equally important. As we are officially in a recession everyone is finding ways to "trim the fat." Be it cutting budgets, finding ways to be more efficient or reusing paper cups we all want to make our money go a little further. But where should we cut? Well I am not a finance expert but I can say that we should all be careful to not cut something that seems like a luxury expense but in reality is not. What am I talking about? Well... the big M word: MARKETING. It might not seem like the greatest idea to spend a couple thousand on direct mail campaigns or the like but a time like this is the best time for it. Why!?

In recessions or economic downturns a lot of companies will do just that. They will suspend current campaigns or cancel future ones, but they are really doing themselves a disservice by missing this opportunity. Marketing is more important now more than ever to stay relevant and visible to your customer. Many companies will shrink into the background in order to save money in the short term and then realize that while they were waiting for safer times to spend money they lost their customer base. Marketing is a must. It is always an essential to successful business and the businesses that will weather the storm are the ones that won't forget about it.

This doesn't necessarily mean that you should market in the same way. It might mean changing your approach and trying more creative and cost effective ways of reaching your customers (i.e. "beefier" website, email campaigns), but whatever you do don't forget to remain vigilant in your marketing. Stay relevant to your customers and use this time as a way to get ahead of your competitors. If they're all "trimming" their own Marketing "fat" you could afford to take that extra piece of the "pie." :) O.k. a bad joke but you can appreciate the analogy.