TOUGH TIMES, NEW OPPORTUNITIES
This is the first marketing-specific post on Get Them Talking, my new blog focused on public relations and new media marketing tactics for small businesses and entrepreneurs. You’re probably asking yourself, “who the hell cares about PR and Marketing while the economy is melting down and I can barely make payroll?”

Here’s the thing: most business people’s first reaction to economic hardship is to slash marketing and advertising down to the bone, then go about reducing staff and other overhead. That makes sense in a way, since the power bill, employees and taxes DO take priority. However – and I’ll say this a lot in the next few blog posts – in tough economic times when businesses must fight for every sale and over every customer, re-connecting with existing consumers and reaching out to new ones is critical.

To put it simply: Market or Die.

Even in tough times, people will continue to spend money, but they will be very careful about WHERE they spend it. If you pull back all marketing while your competitor continues to push forward, your company will be forgotten and they will get the sale.

Only a finite number of sales can be made at any given time. For every dollar in sales you make, it means your competitor is not only losing that sale to you but they can’t replace that lost revenue.