Stop Advertising?

January 20th / By Glen / in Advertising / no comments.

It’s a competitive world we live in, with millions of companies fighting for clients, customers and business. Some seem to succeed while others struggle day by day or fade away. These are trying times, the markets are unstable, the dollar is crashing and people are tightening their grip on every dollar they have.

So what do you do if you own a business? No matter the size whether it be a one person shop or you have 200 employees the basic principles still apply. The first thing most of us inherently do, is to decide where can we cut costs. No one wants to let employees go, or decrease their salary or trim product expenses, those would be too drastic. I know, business is slow, let’s cut the advertising or better yet let’s stop it all together. We don’t need to advertise, people know our name, they are going to buy a car or suit from us no matter if we advertise or not, so why bother wasting all that money every month. Advertising is just unnecessary luxury anyway!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in on a meeting and heard a client say, “Our sales are down 15% over the 3rd quarter and we have to cut costs, we’ve decided to stop all advertising until business gets better”. ???? “Let me get this straight Mr. X, you’d like to stop all your advertising to help get your business back on track?” As one of the best marketers of all time Mr. Henry Ford once said “ A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.”

If you know anything about basic advertising 101, you know that the exact opposite is true, when business slows, thats the time to step up to the plate and increase your advertising. What do you think those companies that succeed do? After-all, if you want more business you need to let more of your customers know who you are and what you do!

Glen Tymchuk