The answer to that question was put forth in an article called "The (Ad)vantage: Put On Your Game Face" by Kirk Drummond from MediaPost who participates in a number of sports that teach him business lessons that we can learn from as well....
"Many companies and marketing professionals may have unwittingly entered the business equivalent of an endurance race. The event? Today's challenging economy. At risk? Your job and business. The goal? Survive, if not thrive. As marketers and brands hunker down, one of the most common strategies is to pull back on marketing, slash budgets and go quiet, waiting for the economy to heat back up before returning to the market. Certainly, on the surface, this makes total sense. After all, if consumers are spending less, why spend money on futile marketing efforts, right? Well, that depends. Are you trying to simply survive? Or win?
Endurance sports are often referred to as races of attrition. In other words, teams who can work together, continue moving forward and simply stay standing - all as things become more challenging - will often find themselves ahead of the others, maybe even winning. This strategy is built on a major factor that's often overlooked in sport and business: The course itself and the required effort to endure can take out your competitors. Therefore, the longer you stay in the game, the better your odds of getting ahead. In order to stay in the game, leadership must resist the urge to cut back and wait out the storm. Reducing your marketing efforts is the equivalent of stepping off the course, lying down and allowing your competition to pass you by. Doesn't sound like such a good strategy, does it?
Analysis of the 1981-82 recession indicates that B2B companies who maintained or increased their marketing during this period grew at a faster rate than those who didn't (per McGraw-Hill and the International Journal of Research in Marketing). In addition, according to American Business Media, brands that maintained mind share during an economic downturn saw a direct correlation to growth in current and future sales at a much lower cost than a brand attempting to rebuild their mind and market share after a period of inactivity. "
That all makes sense to me and I would imagine it would make sense to you as well but what about our clients? If anything, expect changes and in fact, you should make suggestions for change:
- Change creative to draw attention
- Change spending levels to match the greatest Return on Investment
- Change monitoring and tracking to make sure you get credit for customers at your client businesses
- Change the relationships you have with clients to make them more personal and worthy of their trust
- Change your service levels to exceed client expectations
- Change out the old information from your Customer Marketing Profile with new information that matches the marketplace right now.
- Change for the better, evolve into the new marketplace by looking for new solutions