Don't cut customer outreach in a recession.(from the TMC net[TM] BLOGS.)(Brief article)

In his Communications and Technology Blog, Rich Tehrani writes:

It is fascinating to hear industry execs speak of how most of their customers are cutting back on their spending so in response they reduce their spending on new customer acquisition by cutting PR, marketing and sales budgets.

For those companies who are able, now is the time to keep the above budgets steady or even increase them. Marketing today has evolved light years from where it was in the past. You can now track page views, clicks, browsing behavior and response to various creative graphics and messaging. In short, you can determine how to spend outreach dollars more effectively today than ever before.

And most companies don't realize this. They sadly have top level managers who indiscriminately cut customer outreach dollars because that made sense to them in the past when measurement techniques were in the stone ages.

What needs to be factored into the equation is the fact that customer outreach has evolved and disciplines like SEO, SEM, social networking, PR, live and web events need to be continued - in order to get more customers.

Sometimes a change in messaging is needed as well. For example, the hair dye company Just For Men is now running ads on TV which imply their product can help candidates on job interviews. Genius. By definition, many will infer the product can help them keep their job as well.

Visit Rich's blog at http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani

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