Guest Blogger: Gareth Dunlop, MD of Tibus

Imagine you are a small business owner with 10 to 50 employees. Your business has been growing well for nearly ten years now and is really starting to perform for you. You were just planning a new phase of growth in the early part of 2008 when deep recession hit. Your margins are squeezed, your people are stressed, and not only are there no bonuses this year, there are no pay-rises for any of your staff. You are concerned that you will need to lay people off.

You check the local business press for inspiration and guidance.

What do you read?

“Keep your foot on the advertising pedal”
“Marketing through a recession”
“Investing in building your brand”

The titles have been altered to ensure that this doesn’t become personal, but the message in each is the same – that businesses should maintain or increase their marketing spend in a recession.

Really?

So given the choice of laying someone off, or reducing marketing, you should lay someone off?
Or given the choice of a direct foreign territories sales visit to close a hot lead, or continuing to market, you should market?
Or given the choice of finalising a product innovation, or continuing marketing investment, you should continue marketing?

The communications industry needs to wise up and grow up. I have yet to read a single article by an author making these recommendations who has put a penny of their own money into implementing these recommendations for their own business.

Clearly there are many businesses who should definitely reduce communications spend. And more importantly, there are yet more businesses who radically need to alter how their communications budget is spent, by realising that the day of the interruption marketer is gone forever, and has been replaced by the age of the permission based marketer.

And that permission based marketing happens online, in a measurable and accountable manner.