I love reading Hutch Carpenter’s blog over at I’m Not Actually A Geek. Mostly because we both would rather not think of ourselves as geeks when in reality… we are.
He has a great post called: Do Not Kill Off Marketing During a Recession. He talks about the idiotic tendencies of companies to cut their marketing and creative departments FIRST when a recession hits the economy.
It doesn’t make much sense does it? As a social media marketing and design company, we tend to be a little bias towards marketing because that is what we love! Hutch has a great graphic that I am
going to post here. I encourage you to go read his blog when you have the chance it will never let you down!
It is easy as a small company to sit here and moan about the big brother’s cutting of creative and marketing. Honestly, I don’t mind that they do because we tend to get more work after the cut. It is still idiotic to think that cutting marketing would result in slimming down the business in order for the competitive nature of the company to shine through.
Marketing should be recession proof as far as your balance sheet is concerned. You cannot slim down a marketing budget because of a recession. People are still buying. People are still wanting to spend money. Keep that marketing budget going.
A Message to A FEW Fortune 500 D-Bags:
Next time you decide to lay off your creative departments…
Next time you decide to lay off some floor workers from a plant…
Next time you get mad at marketing for spending too much money…
I would advise to cut the tens of thousands of dollars spent on your spa treatments… your first class plane tickets.. your rental car that had leather interior and a butler…the lavish hotel rooms during conferences… and taking the executive team out to eat every day.
Kyle,
As a fellow creative who depends on people spending dollars on marketing I say its great advice. While others are pulling back it is the perfect time for you to push forward or at minimum, keep on truckin’.
Don’t businesses want less competition in their market? Thats what a recession will give you! less brands on the shelf next to yours. Less people paying for Google Adwords. Less people spending money on SEO. This is an open door to opportunity for those who can still muster up a marketing presence.
Kyle – thanks for the shout-out! And great post. There’s definitely a better surgical approach to handling costs during a downturn than simply hacking everything.
Me a geek? Well, yes I guess it’s true. You? Geek all the way buddy!