Don't Stop Now

We've all heard the voices in the wilderness whispering that we are on the bleeding edge of a recession.

Many companies have the tendency to hibernate during a tough economy as they re-run and exhaust yesterdays marketing initiatives. Marketing budgets are either frozen or redirected and any new projects or initiatives are placed on hold. Many pardons for my boldness…that's almost suicidal.

However, some companies see a tough economy as an opportunity to pick up the cadence of their marketing while at the same time create and promote a new product or service to get noticed and stay relevant. In other words, during a time branded as "fight or flight," they choose to fight; and historically, they beat the odds.

Keep in mind that consumers suffer from swift amnesia and will quickly forget about your brand if you shut off the spigot and cease your marketing activities. You know the saying…out of sight, out of mind, so don't stop now. Although you may have modest marketing reserves, invest your time, energy and capital exclusively into those activities which will produce the greatest marketing ROI; and by all means, leverage word of mouth and viral marketing which cost little to nothing, yet can yield measurable results.

Anything less will place you on the endangered species list.

Consider the following mini case studies documenting companies that went full-throttle with their marketing in the midst of a poor economy…
  • Ivory launched Ivory Soap during the great depression.
  • During the great depression, Kellogg's and Post were in each other's face, staring eye-to-eye. Kellogg's kept their advertising going and Post cut back. Kellogg's now dominates the cereal market.
  • Jif peanut butter and Kraft salad dressing increased their advertising spending during the 1989-1991 recessionary period and experienced sales growth of 57% and 70% respectively!
  • Intel launched their "Intel Inside" campaign in the midst of the economic difficulties in 1990-1991.
  • During the 2001 recession, Dove more than doubled its share of spend and created a value-oriented appeal to middle income consumers which resulted in a market share gain of five percentage points by mid 2002.
  • Oh, before I forget…Steve Jobs launched the iPod during the 2001 recession. People cleaned the shelves of 'em like they bought bottled water and generators during the 1999 Y2K scare.
There's plenty of real estate available on this list reserved for those who forge on when times are tough.

Aside from marketing, keep your sales and sales support team intact. They will stay with a company that maintains a strong marketing effort to help them through and provide them with the materials they need to keep the pipeline full.

Don't stop now. Keep going!

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The Better Option: Paid Or Organic?

The answer? Both. That's right…both. For the first time in history, the user can go online and actually request the ability to see all sorts of ads. Accordingly, Search Marketing legitimately serves the advertiser, consumer and the engines that have managed to wiggle their way to the top in this free market society we live in.

As a provider of Search Engine Marketing, we understand how to create the online meeting place between advertisers and consumers. There is a lot to understand in this ever-changing environment with spiders, algorithms, search term popularity, etc. So let's talk about the advantages and disadvantages of each…and their synergistic relationship as well.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

Pros
  • Listings are believed to be the result of an objective, automated third party. Accordingly they are trusted.
  • Will provide a constant stream of traffic over time.
  • Ongoing maintenance is fairly low once pages are optimized.
Cons
  • Due to automation, results can have a certain level of inaccuracy to them.
  • Automated technology decides the listing copy.
  • Engine requirements for successful search results can be out of sync with overall site design and not accessible by spiders.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM):

Pros
  • Predictable.
  • Ability to create synergy with offline campaigns.
  • Paid listings are more targeted due to integration of “human” factor and knowledge of marketplace that cannot be replicated by automation.
Cons
  • Can get expensive when bidding on very competitive keywords, which increases cost per clicks.
  • Some Internet users are skeptical about paid listings.
Synergies Between SEO And SEM:

Executing a strategy that combines both paid and organic search increases the likelihood of click throughs due to multiple impressions on the first page…when the execution is done well.
  • Top placements of both paid and organic can exponentially increase the likelihood to click.
  • Visitors from paid search ads AND organic ads convert at a much higher rate when critical words are conveyed in headlines and body text.
  • Gaps in SEO coverage can be covered by paid coverage.
  • There is a 16% increase in brand association when the brand is in both top paid and organic listings*.
  • There is a 2.2% lift in aided brand recall and purchase consideration is increased by 8%* when the brand is in both top paid and organic listings.
*Enquiro Search Solutions, Inc. (July 2007). The Brand Lift of Search.

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