There could not be a worse time to begin planning to spend. Your cash flow is at a low point and almost every marketing exercise needs time to produce results. So you could be running on your overdraft, expensively, before you see the results of your spend.
Time and again I've urged businesses to keep pace with their marketing when the going is good; it may appear to be the worse time to divert your attention from the nuts and bolts of core business activity but it's actually the very best time. First of all, you have to work out why your turnover has reached its dizzy heights.
More often than not, you're reaping the marketing spend sown months earlier but the oxygen of marketing eventually runs out; you should be heartened by the business improvement and be planning, right away, to do more of the same. But then, with a business running at full capacity, what's the point?
'Like restaurants with three-week waiting lists, businesses which have more work than they can handle have the appearance of being at the top of their game'The point is that turning away business because your service or product is in such high demand is a marketing tool in itself; like restaurants with three-week waiting lists, businesses which have more work than they can handle have the appearance of being at the top of their game. You will find that your new clients are prepared to wait because they see you as the best.
Having a backlog of potential business is also reassuring if you have any ambition to expand. If you're fairly sure that sales are coming your way, the decision to hire is made very much easier for you.
I had a meeting this morning with a small business in this precise situation. Its core business built steadily after a two-year, low-key marketing spend and, this year, it has spent almost nothing. My visit this morning revealed staff sitting around with little to do and, guess what, the general manager trying to fire-fight with a new marketing campaign.
And of course there are ways for us to swiftly build some business, based on reduced prices and direct mail. But just imagine how much more solid the business would have been had it continued trading at capacity without offering a single discount. Marketing is not a fire sale, it's as essential a part of your business budget as the wage bill.
