Today's business news & commentary: Susanna's Online Magazine: copywriting, Internet marketing, direct response.

How To Attract the "Smart" Marketers and Eliminate the Rest.

I've been told we're having a recession. I've heard that people are not spending money, that many people are cutting back on their advertising and marketing --- some actually cutting it out. Fortunately, my clients are the smart ones. Why do I say that?

Read what a recent edition of Advertising Age has to say:

Gut-wrenching news, layoffs and budget cuts aside, history shows recessions have been some of the best times for media and marketing innovation. For marketers who kept their wits, economic valleys -- the deeper the better, in fact -- became foundations of empires.

Two years into the Great Depression in 1931, a Procter & Gamble Co. executive named Neil McElroy wrote the memo that ushered in the brand-management system. It eventually helped propel him to the presidency of P&G. It wasn't a cure-all. During the first three years of the Great Depression, P&G's sales fell by more than half, from $192 million to $94 million, and earnings fell 50%, to $11 million. (Deflation accounted for some of that decline.)

But P&G didn't lay off anyone during the Depression. And it charged ahead with innovation. In 1933 it launched the first radio soap opera nationally and its first synthetic detergent brand, Dreft.

Around to cover such events were Advertising Age, launched seemingly inopportunely in 1930, and BusinessWeek, launched at the outset of the Depression, in 1929.

I might add that Fortune Magazine was launched February 1930. In case you don't know it, that was the start of The Great Depression. I keep a copy in front of me at the computer to remind me that smart people get going when times are the very worst. I'm at my best when times are the worst. And you can be too.

The thing is, most people will cut back. That leaves room for the smart people to make money and have all the marketing to themselves. They get all the good air time, all the good print space, Internet space, everything.

Charles Schwab founded his discount brokerage during a recession in 1974. Great people get going in bad times. They do great things. And they spend lots of money. They do not know fear.

According to Advertising Age, "Marketers should draw lessons from such examples of charging ahead despite recession, said Ed Rensi, former CEO of McDonald's USA through the early 1990s recession; he's now a motivational speaker, Nascar team owner and director of several companies.

Unfortunately, he said, companies usually do just the opposite. They cut staff, which he said leaves those left behind overworked and risk-averse. And they cut marketing, which props up profits short term but erodes market share down the road."

Smart people find opportunity in everything. Downturns are indeed opportunities for the smart marketers. Now, if you're a copywriter or marketing consultant, you don't want to be bothered with the people working on shoestrings and wanting to get your work for nothing. Turn them away fast. They'll waste your time. Lots of people don't have gonads. They fold at the slightest sign of trouble. They're losers. They're scared to spend money in order to make it. And they're scared to pay you what you're worth. They don't seem to understand that you're using your valuable time and skills to make them money and to grow their business.

You have to stand your ground. Charge what you're worth. If a loser won't pay that, have him look for a junior copywriter. That's all his business is worth to him so that's all it's worth to you.

The bright business people know that now is the very best time to spend the most money and get the best brains in the biz. Yes, it takes a strong stomach and lots of guts. But your smart marketers --- and you --- will come out the other end richer and more successful. The timid and scared will be seen in tents on the side of the road, begging for crumbs.

Happy recession!
Susanna on 04.08.08 @ 10:52 AM CDT [link]