Although somewhat shallow, the prolonging of the 2001 recession has not escaped the notice of printing customers who reduced their advertising budgets as a result. This has translated into problems for the printing industry, and since shallow recessions typically mean weak recoveries, we may not see significant improvement soon. Times are still tough.

This article has two goals: The first goal is to make the case as to why you, the printer, should be more aggressive with your marketing efforts during tough times. The second is to provide you with a useful means of communicating the same message to your clients – in fact you may read how to obtain a tool to do just that at the end of this article.

So, what do printers do when the going gets tough? Not unlike the rest of the world, what normally happens is the obligatory reduction of all "unnecessary" expenditures, and sadly that includes most, if not all, of their marketing and advertising dollars.

What makes matters worse is that in "good" times printers claim that they cannot budget for and spend on marketing because "… we are just too busy". The irony grows when in "tough" times, like current conditions, they are reluctant to spend because things are "… too slow and we just can’t afford it".

Well, this just doesn’t make sense. It is a losing proposition that will get you nowhere. In fact, there is plenty of empirical data to show that, if you have the foresight to implement the right strategies, an economic slow down might be the best time for your company to grow.

Unless you don’t think you’re up to the challenge, a better maxim is, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

So let’s get going.

Adjust your Attitude

Don’t panic. The current conditions really do present great opportunity. As a business owner or manager, you need to set the tone and have the positive outlook that will motivate and rally the troops.

We tend to "get" what we focus on, so choose to focus on success and opportunity instead of doom and gloom. Let the competition hunker down.

Your mission is to lead the charge for your company to "seize the day"!

How is that going to happen?

First, Do No Harm!

Don’t take your eyes off of your customers. We have been communicating to our clients for a long time, and it is especially true now, that "Your best customers are somebody else’s best prospects."

This is a great time to show your existing customers how much you appreciate them. It is imperative that, at a minimum, you maintain all your existing relationships and use this period to build even stronger bonds.
What’s next?

Be Visible!

And better yet, be very visible. Why? Because, there is ample evidence to support the fact that maintaining or increasing your advertising and marketing investment in slow times is actually more effective than in good or growth periods.

A key reason is that when the marketing and advertising "noise" goes down, the voice of those still talking sounds that much louder. When your competition (and others outside of the industry) have stopped advertising or reduced their marketing efforts, it’s your opportunity to saturate the market with your message. Since your message is one of few reaching the audience, your odds are much better for a great return on your marketing and advertising dollar. When the upturn does come around, and it will, and your prospects and customers are looking to increase spending, your company will likely be the first one that comes to mind because you’re the company that has been the most visible all along.

When the president of Proctor & Gamble was asked his opinion about the reduced rates for ads for the 2002 Super Bowl, he said they were taking advantage of the lower prices and doing "more" advertising with the goal of increasing market share.

Contrast this with the Kmart strategy to decrease advertising in September and October of 2001. The result? Sales dropped an astounding 5% in October. An article that John Gaffney wrote for Business 2.0 in February 2002 recounts the following regarding Kmart and its CEO, Chuck Conway.

"By the late fall the company had lost far more in sales than it had saved in marketing costs… In a conference call to analysts, Conway admitted his misstep and announced that he was increasing Kmart’s marketing budget. "There is no doubt we made a mistake by cutting too much advertising too fast. Clearly we’ve learned where the threshold of pain is in advertising.""

Whose example are you going to follow? Not sure yet?........... See part two tomorrow.