Dear Dave:

My company is significantly cutting our marketing budget for 2009, but I’m still expected to deliver results. What should I do?

Signed

Desperately seeking marketing budget

Dear Desperate:

Welcome to the “do more with less club.” A recent survey of Chief Marketing Officers by marketing services company Epsilon revealed that marketing is usually among the first casualties in a downturn, despite the widespread belief among marketing executives that a tough economic period is precisely the time when marketing must play a key role.

All you can do is rise to the challenge. Here are two strategies:

1. Understand what your executive team expects your company’s marketing investments to deliver. Together, you should define clear objectives and establish metrics to measure marketing performance. Use past performance to get an idea of what your new budget can realistically expect to deliver in terms of brand exposure and lead generation.
2. Diversify your marketing plan by including programs that can be measured. More and more, marketers are turning to online and interactive marketing programs because (1) virtually all of their customers and prospects search online for products and solutions, and (2) online programs are built around performance metrics: views, clicks, conversions. Seek out appropriate industry Web sites, newsletters and search engines where you can build a presence. And don’t forget to strengthen the content on your own Web site and ramp up email marketing efforts to your house list.

Despite economic and market conditions, marketers who act with intelligence and resolve will withstand the downturn and emerge stronger on the other side.

For David Klein Marketing, I’m Dave