10 Marketing Tips to Ride the Recession

1. Be relevant to your target audience; else they will not listen


2. Streamline your current processes; eliminate waste and consolidate costs


3. Be creative and stand out in the process


4. Raise your profile - be in through clever advertising, digital mkting, PR or speaking opportunities


5. 360 degree communications - ensure your messages go out via different channels, so the messages reinforce one another


6. Reassess the big picture - and this may involve taking a step back to realign business or revenue targets


7. Identify niches and priotise your expertise - allowing you to channel your (limited) resouces into developing a strong proposition


8. Focus on customer retention - and keeping them happy with you. Trying to get new customers in these times are even more expensive exercise.


9. Review relationships and discuss costs with your vendors or suppliers - and this could mean a bulk discount contract or longer payment terms


10. Do not stop your marketing - most firms fall into the trap of cutting down on marketing during recession because it is preceived as the 'most obvious' thing to do since marketing is an 'expense'.

What other tips do you have for your fellow marketeers? Leave a comment!

Media Development Authority of Singapore - Social Media Rap Video

Really wonder what objectives were the folks at MDA (Media Development Authority of Singapore) were trying to achieve. Viral? Positioning as a new and ever changing agency of adopting new media perhaps?

Well, it is an attempt at something...

What are your thoughts?

Marketeers say economy to improve in 2010

Happy New Year to all our Pop Marketing readers!

With the global economy taking a massive hit during the last few months, you as a marketeer must be wondering how it's going to impact you in 2009. Research and surveys have shown that budgets for traditional advertising and marcoms activities such as TV, radio, outdoor advertising are likely to be cut this year while budgets for digital marketing such as pay-per-click, viral, search engine optimisation and affiliate marketing remain largely the same or even increase. 

This comes as no surprise because digital marketing has proven to be far more efficient is delivering return on investment (ROI)!

Marketing Sherpa has released the 'Chart of the Week' discussing the current market sentiments. It's interesting to see how and when marketing professionals, in general, are expecting the economy to improve. This is surely of utmost importance because this determines how much they can spend for their campaigns!

Chart: When Marketers Expect the Economy to Improve

Click here for the full article - available till Feb 6th unless you're a subscriber of Marketing Sherpa

Key insights:

1. 35% of Small Biz (under 500 employees) expects things to improve during H1 2009.
   
2. Overwhelming 55% of large biz (501+ employees) say the economy will improve either in H1 or H2 2009.
   
3. A fairly small percentage of the biz interviewed said that things will only pick up in 2012.

Good luck for your budget planning!