He put up a sign on the highway telling how good they were. he had a web site built. He stood by the side of the road and cried “Buy a hot dog, folks!” And people bought and bought and bought.
He increased his meat and roll orders. He bought a bigger stove to take care of his growing trade. He got his son home from university to help him. He hired a hotdog chef.
But then something happened.
His son said “Dad, haven't you been listening to the radio? Haven't you been reading the newspapers? Haven't you been watching the television? There's a credit crisis. If money stays tight, we are bound to have bad business!
There may be a big recession coming on! You'd better prepare for poor trade!”
Whereupon the father thought “Well, my son has gone to university. He reads the papers and listens to the radio and television, and he ought to know”.
So the father cut down his meat and roll orders. He took down his advertising signs and turned off his web site. And he no longer bothered to stand on the side of the highway crying “Buy a hot dog, folks!”
And his hot dog sales plummeted almost overnight.'
“You're right son,” the father said, “We're certainly headed for a recession!”
The moral of the story is…
History has proven companies that maintain or increase their advertising investments in periods of economic downturn increase their sales and share of market, both during and after the downturn.
Here are the facts:
• Maintaining or increasing advertising budget levels during economic downturns may be necessary in terms of protecting market position vis-a-vis forward looking competitors.
• If a company fails to maintain its “Share of Mind” during an economic downturn, current and future sales are jeopardized. Maintaining “Share of Mind” costs much less than rebuilding it later on.
• If during an economic downturn you maintain a strong advertising presence while your competitor cuts his budget, you will automatically increase your “Share of Mind.”
• Advertising through both boom and down times sustains the necessary brand recognition.
Economic downturns reward the aggressive advertiser and penalize the timid one. Maintaining a company's advertising during an economic downturn will give the image of corporate stability within a chaotic business environment, and give the advertiser the chance to dominate the advertising media.
During an economic downturn, a strong advertising/marketing effort enables a firm to solidify its customer base, take business away from less aggressive competitors, and position itself for future growth during the recovery.
When times are good, you should advertise; when times are bad, you MUST advertise.
Advertising in an economic downturn should be regarded not as a drain on profits, but as a contributor to profits and insurance for the future.
Journal Of Small Business And
In the present scenario, millions of pre-existing websites are being further populated by newer additions on daily basis, as the majority of business concerns are going online in order to exploit wider markets across national frontiers. As a domino effect, the advertising and marketing of websites have gone extremely competitive and expensive. Under the circumstances, it seems only a financially resourceful websites can survive. But it is not entirely true.
With advent of Article Marketing, small business concerns have renewed hope of survival and success. Article marketing is a cost-effective and logical web-marketing stunt being extensively employed by seasoned SEOs (Search Engine Optimizers) or web marketers, to enhance Internet visibility of a website.
Article Marketing basically involves a website submitting informative and coherent articles to other websites. The topics of the articles are carefully chosen to stick to the basic business of the website. The articles contain a resource box with a short bio of the website and a link to the website. As articles are submitted to hundreds or even thousands of forums, blogs and e-magazines, which have their own faithful following of hundreds and thousands of readers per se, these articles result into high quantity of quality inbound links for the website from outside, without having to buy, beg or reciprocate links.
As a rule, these inbound links from other web addresses act as ?votes? of confidence for the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. The number of these votes of confidence determines the ranking of the website address in Seeps (Search Engine Ranking Pages). And of course, higher the ranking of the website, the better Internet visibility for the website, which in turn translates into better business prospects and optimized turnover.
With an easy opportunity to showcase expertise and wisdom, the articles present themselves as means of confidence building measures to a prospective customer, who is thus reinforced about the quality of the products and services of the website in no uncertain terms. The articles pre-sell the products and services of the website and offers seven to ten times better advertising than regular advertising. After reading a coherent and informative article on a product or service, a first time visitor to the website visits it with a positive outlook and is easily convinced about the authenticity of the offerings of the website.
What's more, Article Marketing is incredibly economical in nature and has the least toll on the marketing budget of any website. To undertake article marketing, all the site needs to do is to write informative, easy to understand and articulate articles on subjects relevant to the business of the website and submit these articles to maximum of web based forums, blogs and rezones. These websites are always seeking informative articles free of cost. However, some of them may charge a nominal amount to further the articles to other forums / blogs / e-magazines.
With Article marketing, a website may relieve itself from other marketing stunts involving cold calls or face-to-face sales appointments to sell their products and services. A small-scale business website may feel rescued from the need to buy links or beg for links, which also involves spending valuable effort, time and money. Unlike direct marketing and paid advertisements, a well written article may continue to be republished on various newsletters, websites, forums, and blogs and trigger a viral marketing effect, to last for a longer span of time.
Both John Hacking & Remix90 are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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