Monday, October 27, 2008

Don't slash that marketing budget just yet.

[caption id="attachment_225" align="alignleft" width="114" caption="No, you aren't throwing it to the wind - really!"]

Of course the economy is shaky now, that's pretty obvious. But let's say you're a marketing VP and your manager awaits your 2009 marketing budget. Or you own your company and need to decide...

What to do?

Impassioned self-interest aside, I'm going to suggest you continue to manage a solid marketing program. But how can you justify it to your boss... or yourself?

The big picture:

-The US government is pouring its heart and soul (and its apparently endless "spare" cash for which we'll pay later) into an economic recovery plan so unprecedentedly massive that chances are good it will have a positive impact during 2009. (Okay, chances are maybe 55-45, but anyway...)

-Even though McCain has now assured us that he will win, there's a very big chance that he won't. And that is good news for the economy even in the short term. Barack Obama is a rock star. He'll start his term with a groundswell of excitement among the public, both here and abroad, and that will support optimism and some economic improvements - even now, many Americans are optimistic that the economy will improve. Consumer confidence matters a lot.

-Marketers have better tools than they did in the past. As a prime example, detailed return-on-investment analytics mean that marketers understand (and can defend!) how specific marketing investments are panning out and no longer feel a pressing need to scale back for the sake of short-term savings.

-A recession does not mean that business stops in its tracks. In fact, some sectors continue to do well. Selling to the military? Selling products to kids (believe it or not, that's one of the last places some families cut); health care products; anything that makes business, the home, or life itself more efficient; or anything that demonstrably saves money - you have an opportunity to shine right now. Oh, yes, and therapists apparently do very well in these times, but that's just a side note!

-Not in such a great sector? Still, business, even if slower, goes on. Your smart marketing helps improve your market share while competitors are pulling back and missing opportunities.

-Pulling back and losing business is a vicious cycle. Cutting your marketing is a good way to start a downward journey.

-In all this, it pays to be smart. Being consultative, showing you have your prospect's interests at heart, showing how your product or service solves a problem... now is not the time for vapid or unfocused marketing - as if there ever is such a time!

The little picture:

-Okay, if you have to cut a little bit from the budget, even after all I've tried to tell you, so be it, Jedi. Please make sure the dollars you do spend work especially hard - public relations, the Web, interactive communications, newsletters, and targeted outreach to very specific prospect groups should always be part of your plan.

It promises to be an interesting year. Your thoughts?

Monday, October 20, 2008

How to be smarter than an antelope, part one.

No offense to antelopes, lemmings, elephants or other herd animals. But they do things that we humans should avoid. Like stampede. And swiftly follow their leader when said leader is afraid. (As humans, it may have occurred to us as of late that sometimes our leaders aren't ... oh, shall we say... infallible?)

Watching a news segment about herd mentality on CBS yesterday, I learned the following. "We are mammals, just like the wildebeest in the plains of the African Savannah," asserted Andrew Lo, who studies emotions and economics at MIT. Huh, okay.

But then it gets interesting. Apparently, we turn to our mammalian brains (the autopilot stampeding impulse part) when things get rough, and Lo postulates that we have little choice. We react to fear like animals do, kinda. Fight, flight, panic. All that good stuff.

I don't like it.

Let's take a hypothetical (cough, cough) example. A client just skidded to a halt on a useful marketing project this morning, and did so for one reason only. It looks like time for a slowdown. So they will cut their outreach to customers. Take flight with everybody else! The cloud of dust is thickening and we hear the pounding of... oh, never mind.

Maybe I got separated from the herd at birth, but I can't help but wonder... how about counting to ten, twenty or thirty before following the trends?

One older motivational business book I like is Stephan Schiffman's Make It Happen Before Lunch. Among other jewels (yes, I mean that) Schiffman shares his theory of "living off peak" - contrary to the impulses of the mammalian brain (my reference, not his) he urges us to do as others don't. From going to work before anyone else hits the road to gliding down the wide aisles of the supermarket at 10 pm when others are home watching TV, the applications are many. Another expert I trust (and why the heck not?) is the great Warren Buffett, who neatly summarizes one aspect of how he buys and sells investments: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful."

How un-antelopelike.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Dragged kicking and screaming into a new world.


Change is a pain. C'mon, admit it. Unless you're one of those hardy, adventurous souls who's currently stuffing your backpack for a long trip to the Arctic - oh, yes, after quitting your job and kissing your family goodbye, that is. The rest of us, sad to say, prefer the comfort of driving the same route home from work most days. Even if we hate to admit it.


Well, here's news. Obama and McCain are mouthing the right words. "Change is coming!" Etc. Only thing is, the changes they're promising probably aren't the biggest curves ahead. Don't spend your tax break yet.


No, the changes ahead will be more profound. Our basic confidence in the great economic engine isn't gone, but it's shaken. People are actually thinking about (next time) buying homes they can afford (and heat), about the merits of state colleges for their own offspring, about getting a smaller car, wearing a sweater (mittens??) at home this winter, and perhaps even buying less stuff in case times get worse.


The amazing thing? This may be all for the good. In our rush to trash our planet, we in the U.S. have consumed oil and gas, cows and fish, plastic, and ice cream (oops, that's just me) at a truly alarming rate. What we're seeing now is LIMITS. Limits that will prod us toward changes we've resisted, as a nation, as businesses and as individuals.


As in...


-All that money Wall Street was flashing around? Lots of it was fake, a bubble, a myth. The way it was "made" was something no one really understood, and now much of it is gone - actually GONE.


-Peak oil? How many of us have skimmed the articles and turned the page? Yes, Virginia, we will run out.


-Spending as fast as we earn? Oops. Not so smart.


I don't think the American way of life is doomed, or that we'll be living in huts in the dark anytime soon. Instead, I think we'll need to look at how money, honest money, is actually generated and at how our incredible inventiveness can help us come up with technologies and systems for a more sustainable, perhaps more sensible, world.


It could be fun. Really.

Friday, October 10, 2008

The confidence game.

[caption id="attachment_186" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Storms pass. Really, they always do."]Storms pass. They always do.[/caption]

Marketing is an interesting business when times get stormy. I've been doing this for awhile (okay, forever) so I've been through a few downturns and emerged with my company battered but intact. In the process, I've learned a few things, usually a bit late and always after a good deal of capital, both monetary and intellectual, has washed away.

What I've learned in general:


-Some companies will cut marketing budgets. Very few of the best companies will eliminate marketing budgets.

-Some types of marketing look smarter than others in a downturn - we've talked about this before - informative, feedback-based, solid, non-hype-y outreach is the way to go now.

What I've learned each time the economy has tanked since my 1979 college graduation:

-1979: I should have learned to type and skipped Tufts entirely.

-1987: Having too many of one type of client (commercial real estate development, in this instance) means that when that industry crashes, my firm may get as much as zero cents on the dollar. As, in fact, was the case. Urk.


-2001-2002: Oh, my my. Were we ever overstaffed! Were we ever too slow to downsize! And were we ever interested to see we could do as much work AND make as much money, with fewer people. Wow.

-2008: Panic is ridiculous. The markets are getting carried away now. Innocent people are selling their 401 (k)s and locking in huge losses. But I'm betting that, by about this time next year, we'll have a reasonably stable, reasonably prosperous economy again. There's too much government intervention, all over the world, to repeat 1929.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Feels so good when I stop banging my head against the wall...

That's it. I've had it.

Many people are glad they're not in charge. Me, on the contrary... well, I've applied many times for the job of Supreme Ruler of All Things I Care About but apparently someone else is more qualified.

Like George W. Bush.

Or Sarah Palin. (A note from one of my sons' blogs: Google has reinstated its 2001 search index as a birthday celebration. "Sarah Palin" appears a total of ZERO times. Even my then-10-year-old had four listings in 2001.)

In any case, I respectfully withdraw my application to run the world. I'm going to lower my sights and do what I can to improve my country and my own life: save aluminum foil and rubber bands, perhaps.

Seriously though? Within my own weeny sphere, I'll keep plugging to build business for us and our clients, I'll pay my youngest's tuition so he has a chance to get the job he wants someday, and I'll vote. And blog. And... okay, continue to bemoan the worst of the greed, the ignorance and the blind allegiance to All Things Foolish that made me apply to be Supreme Ruler of All Things I Care About in the first place.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

"In the long run, energy is fate."



The words above have inspired me more times than I can count, not just for business but for every effort in which inertia or failure of nerve threaten to take the day.

I've been thinking that courage in business (and it's safe to call it that right now) typically accompanies an inventive, independent approach. Just as I suspect that brave investors are buying into appropriate stocks while they're in the dregs, energetic businesspeople are grabbing the chance to get their company name and products dancing in the minds of their customers right this very minute. They feel even better as they observe their competitors in hiding, afraid to spend money until "everything is all right again." (And when will THAT be? If you know, you're one of very few seers who does. Why wait?)

This may not be the time for an extravaganza of spending or a great show of flash-and-bluster. We agree on this. But public relations, sponsorships, interactive marketing, online surveys to show customers you're listening... moves like that point out that your firm is a winner - in all seasons and through all conditions.

23 years running this business (Good grief!! Note to self, erase that indicator of my age before publishing post) have taught me that "thinking different" and being a marketing contrarian are signs of business intelligence.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Ignorance... it's not so bad.

I'd be obfuscating - okay, lying - if I said I weren't watching the stock market AGAIN today, even though my "money" (like the quotes? that's a new addition) remains for the most part in the same old mutual funds, melting a little more each day even as I repeat the mantra, "this is no time to sell. this is..."

But for a couple of days I KNEW NOTHING.

Yes, yes, it's important to stay aware of what's happening around us right now, including the quaking economy and the this-is-getting-really-personal presidential election. But I escaped it for the weekend by neither looking at a newspaper or TV news nor using a computer (indeed it's possible - just travel to the middle of a large lake in a good sailboat and forget that Palin is hinting that Obama is a terrorist, and that one's theoretical retirement is looking like a shrinking speck on a distant horizon).

Guess what? IT FELT GOOD not to know. And this is being said by a news-junkie-don't-call-me-a-nerd-bookworm-I'm-a-little-worried-oldest-child.

I'm planning yet another ignorance interval. I promise that it won't be a work day.