Download Proven facts about marketing in a recession that

Recession Advertising
What a lot of people fail to realise
by Bill Fryer MA Oxon, Creative Director of www.billfryer.com
Many case histories show, if you keep advertising when others give up, you
come out way ahead.
Seventy years ago the only kind of marketing people studied was advertising
In the April 1927 issue of the Harvard Business Review the results of a study
of 200 U.S. firms showed firms that advertised the most in the 1923 recession
had the biggest sales increases.
In the great Depression of the 1930’s, Kelloggs kept advertising. Their great
rivals Post cut back. Kelloggs took over the dominant position and have never
lost it.
In the recessions of 1949, 1954, 1958 and 1961, almost without exception, sales
and profits dropped at firms that cut back on advertising. After the recessions
ended, those firms continued to significantly lag behind the ones that
maintained their advertising budgets.
A MarketSense study of the 1989-91 recession period showed brands like Jif
Peanut Butter and Kraft Salad Dressing increased their advertising and
experienced sales growth of 57% and 70% respectively.
Nothing has changed. A Profit Impact of Marketing Strategies (PIMS)
analysis, presented at the March 2008 IPA conference compared the results of
firms that increased, maintained, and reduced marketing spend during a
recession. It came to the same conclusions.
As you know, traditional advertising has significantly broadened, as has our
definition of marketing. And direct marketing now includes the whole range
of new media in addition to more traditional advertising via direct mail or off
the page.
What is the easiest way to improve your ROI in direct marketing?
1. Target better. Even the most brilliant message sent to the wrong people
will not do as well as the most boring one sent to the right ones. So
spend your money where it will do most good.
2. Be more persuasive. The moment of truth comes when your prospect
or customer gets a message and either pays attention or does not. It
costs no more to run brilliant creative work than it does to run
mediocre.
3. Feature what people love most. (Themselves.) New ways of
personalising messages online and off, in sequence, are getting
extraordinary results.
Try all three. Part of the secret of Bill Fryer Direct's marketing and
advertising is we aim to get every factor affecting a successful outcome for
your campaign right. Interested in finding out how? Contact
[email protected].