Advertise Online During a Recession or Down Economy

Many people think that during a recession or a down economy the best thing to do is to cut back advertising spend.  Looking around online will show that some businesses are shifting or increasing marketing spends - (this is actually how many companies got to where they are today as evidenced by . Look a little deeper and you will see that online advertising companies are seeing steady increases in business despite the downturn in the US economy. Why is this the case and what does it mean?

Smart businesses (note that this does not mean 'Big Businesses') have learned over the last few years that online advertising such as Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click campaigns, Link Building, Email Marketing, and Social Network / Viral Marketing offer a much higher ROI and are thus less expensive than traditional forms of marketing. Becuase of this lowered cost of customer acquisition, many businesses (such as Volkswagon) are shifting their marketing campaigns from offline to online sources. This is remeniscent of the Wrigley's push almost exactly a century ago. The advertising medium is different, but the basic principles are the same - advertise while the market is slumping in order to save costs while developing innovative strategies that catch the attention of the public.

One of the most prominent (and thus widely discussed) case studies for online advertising comes not from big busines but from the political sphere. President Barack Obamas' electorial campaign focused primarily on online marketing (specifically focusing on Social Networking). This allowed his campaign staff to focus on building momentum within the sphere of his supporters, who then went out and continued to build even greater support through online social media outlets. This is a small piece of a big picture and you can read more about it in this great presentation about the Obama Campaign.

A presidential campaign is on a different scale altogether from a campaign that is going to be run by a small to medium sized business. The great thing about online advertising is that it scales to fit the budget and needs of each business. For small businesses or micro-start-ups, much of the work can be done internally at near zero cost. What you are paying for when working with an online agency is a combination of work-hours, knowledge, experience, and outside relationships. Even for the highly skilled SEO Expert, a full blown SEO campaign takes a lot of time to put together and manage and can include dozens or hundreds of individual elements.

So whatever you may be doing now, I suggest that you take a look at online marketing as an economic way of improving your marketing ROI and increasing your profitability.