B2B Web Strategy Blog – eMagine » Why you really shouldn’t cut your SEM budget in a downturn

Why you really shouldn’t cut your SEM budget in a downturn

August 17th, 2009 Posted by: Bill Gadless

We’ve blogged before about how smart companies maintain or even increase their marketing spend during recessions; it’s the easiest and cheapest time to grow market share.

But let’s say you’ve made that case and lost, so budget cuts are looming; where should you make them, and what should you strive to hang on to, or maybe even increase?

There’s a strong case to be made for cutting your “push” marketing (such things as print and TV/radio advertising, direct mail, etc.), since otherwise you will be paying the same for a recession-reduced number of leads; and maintaining or increasing your “pull” marketing (most notably search engine marketing), where your cost per lead may actually go down. How is this possible? Well, for one thing, instead of saturation-bombing your target market, hoping to hit a number of prospects at the right time, you are able to make contact with a potential customer at the exact time (s)he is seeking your products and services. Furthermore:

With PPC, your costs are likely to decrease anyway, since fewer buyers are looking; but this will be a real, market-driven decrease, not an arbitrary dictate made by some green eyeshade far removed from the fray. And as always, you’re only paying for those interested enough to click through.

On SEO: if you maintain your effort, you can reasonably expect your SERP position to rise simply because many of your competitors will probably be cutting their SEO expense as a presumed “frill”. (Imagine what you might be able to do by increasing your effort just a wee bit…!)

Evidently more than a few companies are signed on to this prescription, since study after study shows an accelerating shift of marketing spending from traditional to online. (For more on this rationale, see Scott Buresh’s excellent post in Search Engine Guide.)

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Entry Filed under: B2B Web Strategy,Search Engine Marketing

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Why you really shouldn’t cut your SEM budget in a downturn

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