Marketing Tactics in a Downturn

Marketing Sherpa has a great chart of the week. It is a revealing graph on where advertisers will be spending their money in light of the "downturn".

The top two spots for increase will be Web 2.0 (Social Network Marketing) with an overall 28% increase and Email Campaigns, with a stunning 34% increase.

The areas with the most dramatic decrease are Radio/TV ads (a massive decrease of 77% overall), rented email lists (a 37% decrease) and Print (hammered with a 56% decrease). None of this is a real surprise to some, but it definitely reinforces what everyone has been talking about for the past year. In fact, we had a lot of builders in a recent webinar that were thinking in the same direction. There is a huge buzz right now about the Social Marketing scene and how builders can connect with customers.

Traditional marketing sources aren't cutting it any more. When you start to tighten the purse strings, it really makes you focus on what works well first. So why not use this as a guide. Thousands of marketers have just shown you what they have measured, tracked and determined works the best.

But let's make the argument-even if you did have a bottomless budget for marketing, why would you spend it where customers are not likely to be looking? As the marketing dollars shift, customers will shift as well. They will gravitate to the areas where the best information is-which, in turn, will reinforce the changes.

This is "permission marketing" in full force. The shotgun approach just isn't effective. You may hit a lot of people but are they the ones who are ready, willing, and able to buy a home? When you become strategic and focus your efforts like a laser, you may not hit as many people, but you'll hit the right ones.