I’m reading the “Marketing in a Downturn” report from Marketing Sherpa and a couple of really interesting facts from their survey jumped out at me.
1) Larger companies are cutting marketing spending more than smaller companies. This make intuitive sense because marketing expenses at larger companies tend to have a lot of brand spend that is not directly tied to sales. It’s easy to make the case to cut those dollars while smaller companies are still squeezing every sale, lead or page view out of their Direct spend.
2) Small companies are not only NOT cutting, but growing their spend opportunistically. With the big boys cutting back, there is less inventory pressure on more traditional media outlets and online outlets which means a buying/testing opportunity for smaller businesses.
3) Related to #1 - brand spend is taking a much bigger hit than direct spend in marketing.
4) Offline marketing is taking a much bigger hit from spend cuts than online. This gets back to our measure vs brand distinction. By being able to prove a return, the online programs are getting the discretionary marketing dollars.

Interesting stuff and good news for online direct marketers like myself :-)