Marketing in these difficult times - Sify

[Adam Dicker]

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Marketing in these difficult times
Sify, India - 1 hour ago
And the clarion-call in every marketing board room: Cut the advertising! In the bargain, brands suffer. Sales volumes may not take an immediate impact with ...


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[Bill Roy]

The article, obviously using Indian market figures, does raise the question 'What should Marketeers do in a 'recession'?'.

The article goes someway to answer the question, advising protection of brand - especially long term protection, take the short term hit on profits, and offer the customer more of your product at a discounted price (500 grms intead of 300 grms). Depending on the particular market these are good points to make. However a subsidiary question asked as to where to cut costs is left generally unanswered by the article, and unfortunately in the commercial world cutting costs in a recession of indeterminate length is a major factor in survival for many businesses.

The article concluds that print and television media are good sources of advertising (and marketing) and yet totally ignors online advertising and marketing. This is a shame, as generally online advertising and marketing can be so much more cost effective and produce a greater ROI. This has been shown by the constant rise in advertising share of online marketing spend over recent years compared with drops in televison marketing and at best stagnation in print marketing spheres.

As already acknowledged this article was writen for the Indian market, a market where the number of consumers having access to online facilities is not as great (in percentage terms) as many western markets and therefore this could be the reason for ignoring this medium in the article. However, with online marketing and advertising the costs are generally much lower, campaigns can be readily tweaked much easier, and ROI is far better than the two mediums suggested. Indeed it could be argued that changing marketing/advertising medium formats to an online based campaign could reduce the required budget whilst maintaining market share and product profitability.

[splonk]

interesting read...

domains may become a more attractive advertising medium, but their status to many as either evil in some way (as having squatting connotations), leave many disinterested in investment. our day will come...

[namesdencom]

You my friend are spot on. The issue with the Internet was and still is education. Education especially as it relates to business owners and marketing managers who continue to miss this great marketing vehicle like batters miss a Rodriguez fast ball.

Not only are businesses and marketing pros missing the point but entrepreneurs are also.

This may explain why my company ownns InternetAdSpots.com, YouAreDiscovered.com, WeFinanceHomes.com and hundreds of other highly brandable (albeit longer) domain names that could easily serve the needs of niche market service industrie consumers while padding the pockets of their owner / operator.

I hear all the chatter about development. Take it from someone that has developed over 100 websites but yet has only one producing more than x,xxx,xxx in sales annually.

The answer is not yet development but education. All the development in the world will mean and produce nothing (or next to it) if you cannot or if we all do not continue to educate - educate - educate the consumers and businesses about what the internet is and how best to use domain names and websites to find and promote goods and services and information.

Excuse me while I jump down from my horse now LOL