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Marketing During a Down Economy – Some Interesting Stats

November 4, 2011 | by Rich Suitum | No comments yet

Over the last few years you’ve probably heard this rally cry from a number of marketers and advertisers – “Take this opportunity during a down economy to increase your market share!” Well, is it true? To what extent can you grow it? Where are the studies to back it up?

A quick search online produced the following nuggets:

- McGraw-Hill Research study of over 600 Businesses found that during 1981-1982, businesses that maintained or increased their ad spend during this time averaged higher sales growth during the recession and in the following three years!

- By 1985, sales of the businesses that maintained or increased their ad spend during that recession had risen 256% over those that had cut back on advertising.

- Likewise, in 2001, another study found that aggressive recession advertisers increased market share 2.5 times the average for all businesses in the post-recession.

- In 2002, the Strategic Planning Institute illustrated that, during economic expansion, although 80% of businesses increased their advertising spend, there was NO improvement in market share! The main reason was because everyone had increased ad spending.

As difficult as it is to find additional funds to allocate to marketing and advertising line items these days, it could be one of your most effective decisions as it relates to ROI. Economists believe we still have a few years of slow growth ahead of us. It could be your time to capture some very valuable market share!

Giving props: Much of the above stats were taken from a paper called Innovating through Recession by Professor Andrew J. Razeghi at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.