May 18, 2009
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There are many companies that are constantly being cautious of how they are spending their money especially when in a recession. According to a study conducted by Ad-ology, over 48% of U.S. adults believe that a lack of advertising by a retail store, bank or auto dealership during a recession indicates the business must be struggling.
This is common sense to most consumers that if a company does not get their name out into the mainstream public as much as they at one point used to then that is a good indicator that they are struggling or have retreated into survival mode.
In order for a company to have TOMA (top of mind awareness) they must continually be advertising and marketing especially in times of recession. During a recession is one of the best times to advertise as a company due to the competition going into retreat and losing some of the market share.
Those company’s that decrease their advertising will lose confidence in the mind of the consumers and lose market share to their competitors. This is true for any size of company and any type of company. No matter how established a company is they can always lose market share.
There have been studies that have shown that when major companies back off in the marketing arena that they lose millions of dollars and can lose so much market share that it will take years to recover all due to the lack of advertising.
Branding, reputation, and credibility are always in question in business and even more so during a recession when the general public can view what a company is doing to get through it. As a consumer there are several things to think about when buying from a company like:
1. Is this a reputable company?
2. Is this company going to be around for awhile?
3. What about warranties?
4. Should I buy a product that will be discontinued soon?
These are just some of the questions that a consumer will be asking when they are looking at companies especially to those that are struggling. Consumers can tell when a company is struggling through several signs and one of the most obvious is lack of advertising and retreat mode.
If you are a business owner and want to not only be able to survive the recession but thrive through it then you need to advertise and get your company into the mainstream in order to gobble up the market share. As a business owner you should look at a recession as a perfect time to reap the benefits of your competitors going into hibernation and decreasing their advertising budgets.
The same is true for online companies. Expanding your reach in order to get your company in front of the consumers during a recession is critical as they do more and more research on companies, products, and services using the internet.
Internet marketing is one of the fastest forms of marketing mediums available as a company can broaden their target market in a much more expedited manner. SEO is among one of the top ways of doing internet marketing as people are using the search engines to determine how reputable and credible a company is.