Yes. That’s right. I’m going to talk about cutting your marketing budget.

I know that we are in the middle of the worst economic downturn our country has faced since The Great Depression. Unemployment is in the double-digits. Businesses are closing left and right. Homes are being lost. Dreams shattered. It ain’t pretty.

It’s during times like this that business owners look for ways to cut costs. You can probably guess where I’m going to tell you to cut your budget. In fact, you might have already made cuts to your marketing budget. Many business owners cut marketing budgets first when they feel the squeeze of the economy.

You do need to cut your marketing budget, and you need to cut it today. BUT, here’s the catch: you need to stop advertising in any medium that you aren’t tracking.

Let me say that again…

Stop advertising where you aren’t tracking your results! If you are running a Yellow Pages ad, a newspaper ad, a Val-Pak coupon offer, Search Engine Marketing, Facebook, a radio spot… whatever the medium, and you AREN’T tracking how well that ad is bringing in new business, either START tracking that marketing campaign, or STOP spending that money! You are likely throwing away THOUSANDS of dollars EVERY MONTH on advertising that isn’t being tracked.

This is one of the most common PROFIT LEAKS that I find in businesses today. So many business owners are throwing money at so many different marketing efforts today, hoping one of them will stick, but they aren’t tracking what’s working. What’s worse is that business owners are cutting their marketing budgets to save money, and they very likely are stopping advertising methods that were bringing in new business. BUT, because no tracking systems are in place, they had no idea what was truly working.

Cutting your budget wholesale during a recession is the WORST thing you can do. In fact, you actually want to maintain your marketing efforts because EVERYONE ELSE is cutting their marketing budgets! Recessions are one of the best times to gain market share!

So don’t follow the rest of your fellow business owners by stopping your marketing efforts completely. Start marketing with intelligence by keeping track of what is working, and stop any marketing effort that ISN’T working. If you don’t have tracking systems in place, take steps today to start tracking what is working, so you know how effectively you are spending your marketing dollars.

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