I learned a good lesson when we went through an economic downturn in the 80s: make marketing your sacred cow. Everything takes a hit but marketing.
At the time I was the marketing director for a company that had been doing about five hundred million in sales. Even as the business appeared to be going belly up, the owner never cut his marketing budget. As a matter of fact, with my encouragement he tripled it. It was an ugly time. The rest of the company hated me. They were angry that while their departments were slashed, marketing was flush. But the owner was a tough old bird who kept saying, “The only way to make money is to market our way out of this mess.”
His was one of the few survivors in that industry. We get together socially for dinner about twice a year. He never fails to credit me with pushing him to do more marketing. He sees it as the key to his business’ survival and consequently the wealthy lifestyle he enjoys today.
I eventually started a marketing company of my own. It flourished because I figured out a better way to sell publicity. While the industry priced its services by the hour, I priced and sold PR by the story. Clients loved it and bought in droves.
I’ll give you the same advice I gave my friend and former employer: increase your marketing and spend that money wisely. Stretch it as far as you can by doing things on the cheap, such as email—although its effectiveness is petering out fast.
The other thing you should be doing is buying publicity from my company, and lots of it. We sell it by the story and no marketing tactic has better reach, costs less, and is more persuasive. A third grader could tell you that nothing will outsell well-placed media stories.
Product publicity is low-cost, high-return marketing and every company is this country should be fighting to get its share. Put us to work arranging news coverage for your product. We charge per story so you always get coverage for your money. Give us a call and buy some media coverage. You’ll see, it’s inexpensive and effective.
P.S. You can’t hire your local PR firm to do the type of work we do. We don’t even consider ourselves a PR firm. My company slogan is “The Non-Advertising, Advertising Agency.” We help businesses deliver their sales messages through their marketing in non-traditional advertising ways. Selling PR by the story is one of them and it ain’t easy. We assume a lot of risk. But over twenty years we’ve honed our skills and have arranged tens of thousand of product news stories. Imagine if news stories about your product started popping up in your key markets. That’s what we are all about.
