Tough times? Six reasons why you must spend more money on marketing

There’s never been a more important time to spend money promoting your business. Bill Gates famously said if he was down to his last dollar, he’d spend it on marketing. Arguably he can afford to say that – the fact is a wealth of studies across the world are backing him up.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) is reporting that UK companies are increasingly realising it is the creative marketeer, ripe with innovation, imagination and the right budget, who grasps the downturn as an opportunity.

It lists six key reasons why committing to a marketing strategy pays off:

• Beware of discounting your services – in the long term it may devalue you brand
• People don’t stop buying in tough times – they simply want more compelling reasons to make that purchase
• If you don’t communicate with your target audience you risk an “out of sight out of mind” response
• Identify what are your strongest products or services and then promote them hard
• Reassure your customers or clients that “you’re on their side.” Genuine empathy goes a long way
• What’s different to previous downturns is the internet. Even the smallest of organisations should raise their game.