Upping Your Marketing Budget ?- How Will COVID- 19 Change Your Marketing Plans?

A recession is the right time to invest in your brand.

1. 1. Lists - How is your customer list?  Do you even have one? If you do, is it clean (can you confirm that most of your contacts are up to date, do you have good addresses, good phone numbers, good email addresses?)  If that answer isn’t NO, now would be a good time to work on cleaning up that list. It's also a good opportunity to touch base with your clients. If you have a terrible list or have no list, you can look into purchasing a list.  There are benefits and drawbacks of this option, but if done correctly, this could be the fastest way to jump into your marketing campaign.  Once your list is ready, we can look at what's next. 
   2. Messaging - What do we want to focus on?   It’s important to have an end goal that you can target and measure, and your messaging should build off of itself.   
      1. Are you a Preschool that wants to make sure your Summer Program is fully enrolled?   
      2. Do you have a restaurant that wants to highlight your take out menu?   
      3. Do you want to just stay relevant with your local community and customer base?  
   3. Ad Spend -  Come up with a number you can spend. I know, this is the paradox.   But you need to focus on allowing your business to grow by getting your messaging in front of your audience.   The long term effects of what you spend today, can definitely put you on the next level.  
   4. Mode of Advertising - What I mean by this is how are you going to get your message out in front of your audience ?    I recommend a multi-touch campaign. The type of campaign I recommend is a direct mail and online advertising mix.    For a test period, I recommend a 4 - 6 week time span.  
      1. Direct Mail - you should be doing a minimum of 3 mailing to the same list  
      2. Online Advertising - Depending on your audience, I’d recommend doing targeted facebook ads to the same geographic area and demographics as your list.  I’d run this ad starting before you do the mailer and continue after you do your last mailer.

• Measure - How will you measure your results?  With online ads you can see clicks and you can generate messages. With a mailer you can offer a coupon or other type of offer that you can measure by the purchase.

1. 1. 1. Ex.  Perhaps you wanted to highlight your takeout taco menu - if you see a bump in taco purchases, you know it's working.  
      2. Ex 2. Perhaps you sell Shoes - you may want to highlight a specific brand - - if you see a bump in inquiries of that brand, you know its working.

• Scale - These are basic ideas on how to start a marketing campaign and test.   If you see the dial turn a bit, you know you can invest more to see more. Keep in mind, this is a long tail curve, you may see some instant results, but what you are trying to do is position your brand as a market leader for future sales.  When we exist the recession, the invest you put in today, will reap its rewards over time.