Excerpt from Northern Nevada Business Weekly

Recessions are different from other economic periods and need to be looked at differently to benefit your business. There are two focuses that you should have when looking at marketing and advertising in a recession: 

Increasing short-and long-term profits. Increasing market share.

In a study of U.S. recessions, McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies covering 16 different SIC industries from 1980 through 1985. The results showed that business to business firms that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth, both during the recession and for the following three years, than those that eliminated or decreased advertising. By 1985, sales of companies that were aggressively recession advertisers had risen 256% over those that didn’t keep up their advertising.

While marketing’s role was once more informational than brand building, and considering that never more than today has the clutter factor been so great, relationships between customers and brands are critical. Relationship marketing has surged to the top of the effective marketing campaigns as a means to keep an appropriate level of share of mind for purchase loyalty.

One major business-to-business advertiser summed it up best. “When times are good you should advertise. When times are bad, you must advertise.”

Materials compiled from a variety of sources, including American Business Media, McGraw-Hill, Penton Research Services and Coopers & Lybrand.