Marketing in Good Times and Bad

There is today an increasing number of articles on Marketing and Direct Marketing in recessionary times. It’s a sudden change from just 6-9 months ago, when all were still rosy despite the couple of patches.

The end of last year saw a high level of direct mail activities in Singapore. My mail box was constantly full. This was due partly to the Post Offices campaign to promote unaddressed mailing but more so it was due to business feeling that they had some loose change. Sales were probably higher than expected and advertising budgets were tagged as percentage of sales.

It makes me wonder if we are conducting direct marketing campaigns to make profits OR are we conducts these campaigns because we made money. Most of the campaigns at the last year end were probably in the latter category. They were:

• Poorly targeted,
• Pretty irrelevant to me, but didn’t make a point at all.
• Many were cute, doubtlessly expensive, but not saying much.
• Many were late… pass the offer period
• Most were just informational, no call for action
• No attempts to create interaction…no contact numbers and where these exist, answering was awfully poor….
  
  Mostly they were non-strategic shots in the dark, done because there was loose change in the marketing budget and a persuasive media salesman.

Lessons Learnt

At the end of 1990, at the outset of the last recession arising from the Asian crisis, I similarly highlighted such wasteful expenditures. Many business owners, especially the SMBs reacted by eliminating almost all advertising spend. Many of businesses did not survive the downturn even though they were relatively healthy at the outset. Often when a business is doing well, it tends to make rash and egoistic decisions like…we don’t need A&P!

What was heartening for me, coming out of the last recession, was to see many SMB clients learn the importance of strategic planning, marketing and marketing communication. A number have become sizeable and successful business since then.

To Plan or Not to Plan

I attended a seminar recently where a speaker proclaimed the death of long term and strategic planning. The world he said “was changing too fast” for this. Many in audience cheered in agreement. These people fail to realize that a decision not to plan is also a strategic one…if we decide not to have a plan which is probably fine… we must know what to do as a team!

Being flexible, nimble, market and situation responsive is hardly about not planning. In fact it requires the organization to have a greater understanding of its planning environment both internal and external. It needs as a team to grasp, monitor, become intimate with the systemic variables that affect its existences and ability to perform.

Certainly the approach of “here is the plan”…”go execute it and don’t ask questions” is dead, as it should be…Effective Planning certainly is not. .

2008 will called for a greater deal of nimbleness. For most businesses the assumptions about the year, and the affecting variables in their environment, will have changed dramatically over the last few months.

A Time to Act

As the first quarter is coming to an end, it is an opportune time to review these assumptions, plans and to make sure we are well equipped to face whatever comes.

"Planning in an Age of Uncertainty" is a program I have devised for businesses that wish to hold its head up rather than bob around in the ebb and flow of todays dynamic environment. Called me at 65-96754534 to arrange for a preview presentation.