When a recession hits, most companies cut marketing first. But if you maintain or increase spending while competitors pull back, your share of voice grows, and that advantage turbo-charges your market share when the economy recovers.
Chapters
It's often said that in a recession, marketing is the first thing that gets cut and the last thing that gets reinstated. That's because many business owners see marketing as a cost, so when things get tough, their reflex reaction is to cut costs. In marketing, we talk about something called excess share of voice, or ESOV. Maintaining or increasing marketing during a recession while the competition scales back their marketing increases your ESOV. When economic conditions improve, This has the effect of turbocharging your marketing's effectiveness, since there's a clear correlation between share of voice and share of market. So when times get tough and a recession seems around the corner, the last thing you should be doing is reducing your marketing spend. Sell the car, mortgage the kids, but keep your marketing going.