With expenses rising and financial security becoming tenuous, is it smart to continue marketing your brand?

It goes without saying that the current climate is creating a lot of financial uncertainty. And, therefore, a lot of business owners are wondering how to best direct their spending to tackle times of hardship.

A common reflex for businesses seems to be to cut their marketing budgets. On the surface, this is an understandable reaction. After all, it feels safe to assume that consumers won’t have a lot to spend on your products or services. However, the past has taught us that soldiering on with your marketing strategy is the best thing you can do to reap the benefits.

Why Continue Marketing?

It can feel like a big risk to continue to invest in your marketing strategy in times of uncertainty, however there are many reasons as to why it may just save your brand:

Competitive Edge

By remaining present while your competitors drop back, you’ll find yourself at an opportune time to be able to reposition your brand, or even  introduce new products. Take advantage of the lack of background noise to really get your message out there.

Staying Relevant

By keeping your marketing strong, you can continue to grow and change as marketing always does. Take Netflix as an example: they kept marketing a new medium for home cinema through the Great Recession in 2008–and they changed home viewing forever. Be a Netflix, and not a Blockbuster.

Cheaper Advertising

One of the few upsides to a recession is that the cost of advertising actually drops. Studies into this have shown that direct mail–usually considered to be more costly–increases during recessions, enabling greater short-term growth.

In such unpredictable times, it may feel tempting to change your marketing strategy quite 

drastically. However, history has shown that readjusting the focus is all that’s needed to remain successful: