Your industry might be going through some tough times, but I can’t emphasize enough the importance of maintaining your sales and marketing programs. If you have to make cuts, make them in capital expenditures, not marketing. The reason is simple: the economy will come back and if you cut your marketing now, you will lose awareness and will not be on the top of customer’s minds when it does. Don’t kid yourself and think you’ll ramp back up at the first sign of it turning around. If you do, you’ll be too late because someone else will have already created the awareness you walked away from.
Use a flat or down economy as a time to grab market share and build your awareness. By doing so, you’ll be sitting pretty when the market comes back.
