Resource Center - Industry Articles
Don’t let the recession freeze-you-up like a deer-in-the-headlights!
by Jody DeVere, February 19 2009
In fact, if you are proactive, you can thrive, while your competition falls to the wayside.
According to a McGraw-Hill study of 600 firms' expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession revealed that companies that did not cut their budgets or chose to increase spending experienced significantly higher sales during and after the recession.
In fact, those companies that had maintained or increased their expenditures during the recession enjoyed an average sales growth of 275 percent over the following five years, while those that had decreased their spending had to settle for an average sales increase of only 19 percent.
Clearly, cutting spending on marketing and advertising during an economic downturn can mean both short- and long-term negative effects on sales and profits.
The question is who, how and what to spend those precious marketing and advertising dollars on to attract more buyers?
My suggestion:
Focus at least 50% of your advertising and marketing resources on women car buyers who are the majority car buyer, influence 85% of all car buying and 73% of all maintenance decisions.
Develop as meaningful green initiative. Women are choosing more and more to shop at businesses that have adopted green initiatives. Women comprise 51.4% of the U.S. populations, and buy or influence the purchase of 85% of ALL products and services. That's a lot of power packed in a purse to get the cleaner, safer world they want.
Develop an online social networking strategy by participating in the blogosphere, social networks and online communities like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter.
According to eMarketer, female usage of the internet in the U.S. has risen 12.4 per cent since 2000, compared with 3.2 per cent for males. In 2011,109.7 million U.S. females are projected to be online, amounting to 51.9 per cent of the online population.
Gaining market share now by launching effective, smart advertising and marketing programs aimed at women during a recession will significantly increase sales now and put you in the leadership position after the recession
Jody DeVere is President of AskPatty.com, Inc. and serves as a consultant to CallSource. She has more than twenty-five years of achievement in sales and marketing leadership, including 10 years developing web-based business solutions across diverse industries. Ask Patty
