Should you stop advertising during a recession?

Find out why the government, who spends millions on marketing our economy to the rest of the world, suggested brands cut their spending rather than plan for growth.

Photo credit: Anna Moffat Photography

True or false?

The BBC reported on 28th June 2022 that a ‘government source’ had confirmed plans for a taxpayer-funded marketing campaign focused on advising brands to cut their marketing spend and invest the money saved into lowering their prices. Apparently, businesses were to be advised (ironically via a national advertising campaign), to avoid wasting money on advertising and pass on the savings, in the form of discounts, to consumers, to help them tackle the cost of living crisis.

The idea of an advertising campaign being used in such a way, against the advertising industry, caused outrage among marketers as you might expect. However, having dug a little deeper, the initial plan was apparently never to run this type of campaign, but rather to work in partnership with businesses, supporting and encouraging them to promote their discounts and offers.

Who knows what was said by our current government, no strangers to a U-turn, but the coverage of this supposed campaign has raised a very common issue that advocates of marketing are forced to tackle regularly - should budget be assigned to marketing or elsewhere?

In actual fact, this doesn’t have to be an either/ or scenario if business owners are prepared to do a little extra work. Bear with me. 

For me, the question of whether marketing should be a priority or not isn’t really a question, it’s a given - it needs to happen. It doesn’t matter how great your business is, if not enough people know about it and are persuaded to buy from it, that business will fail. Marketing is the most effective way to raise awareness and drive revenue, that’s another given.

So far, so … predictable? Well yes, you wouldn’t expect a marketer like me to say anything different perhaps. However, when it comes to assigning your marketing budget as a business owner, you have options.

Learn how to do it yourself

Marketing is not a dark art. It can be learnt and it can be learnt fast. If you don’t want to assign large budgets to outsource your marketing to agencies or individuals who are already skilled in this area, you can become skilled yourself, or upskill members of your team.

There’s no need to go back to business school or sign up for a degree either. There are plenty of people out there who have already gained the qualifications and the skills you need and who are ready and waiting to share it all with you. Learn from them! 

This is the only decision my clients have to make when they approach me looking for help. Do they want me (and my team) to do their marketing for them (budget required) or do they want to learn how to do it themselves (far less budget required)?

Hire smarter

If you’ve decided to go down the route of hiring help, do it the smart way. Don’t be dazzled by huge agencies, with large offices (expensive), large teams (expensive and cumbersome) and lots of clients (distracting). Instead, look for the smaller players, those who don’t have huge overheads that your marketing budget will in part be used to cover.

Our agency is lean. We work with expert contractors (only the best), who all work from home (including us) and we keep our client rosta purposefully select. We don’t want to over-stretch our resources, because we’re small business owners too. Which means that we know how important every penny of your marketing spend is and we are determined not to let you down, or slow you down. Big agences have big processes. We have lean, efficient processes meaning that we can be proactive, responsive and your business quite literally powers ours. We care more because we have to (as well as wanting to).

If there’s a way you can cost-save on your marketing, we’ll tell you. We’ll put every penny of your budget to good use. It’s our business to do so.

So if you’re thinking of cutting your marketing spend, by all means, go ahead. Come and chat to us about how we can help you get better results, for less money, either by taking over your marketing with greater efficiency, or by teaching you how you can do it yourself.

Deciding whether to invest in marketing or offer greater customer benefits doesn’t have to be an either or scenario. Start making smarter marketing decisions and you can have both - brilliant marketing campaigns that will reach and benefit more customers than ever, with less waste. Our goal is to put every penny of your budget to good use so that you see a greater return on your investment. What could be more valuable than that?