Cutting your marketing budget will ultimately do more harm than good.
When company finances get tight, CEOs, CFOs, and other major decision makers often look to areas to cut. Oftentimes, fields like marketing and advertising are the first to go; they’re seen as superfluous, or at least unnecessary, so trimming the budget never seems like a drastic choice.
However, cutting your marketing spending can work against you in several ways:
- Worsening your financial crisis. Marketing is a gateway to higher brand awareness and greater sales. It’s not just some superfluous strategy; it’s your foundation for business growth. If you cut your marketing spending and you spend less time marketing and advertising, you’re going to generate less revenue. With less revenue, you’ll end up needing to make even more cuts, and your financial crisis will only grow worse. If anything, a sufficiently high-ROI marketing strategy can help you resolve your business’s financial woes.
- Leaving you with low-quality service. Let’s say you’re taking your budget from $5,000 a month to $2,000 a month. You can no longer work with a marketing agency, but you can hire a couple of amateur independent contractors. On the surface, this seems like a wise move that will save you money, but you’ll end up with much lower-quality design work and strategy. Ultimately, that can hurt your reputation more than help it; if you’re producing low-quality materials or if your work contains errors, your customers will think less of you.
- Letting the root causes off the hook. You’re in a bad financial position for a reason, and that reason probably isn’t your marketing strategy. All marketing strategies could stand some degree of improvement, but this likely isn’t the root cause of your financial distress. If you let marketing become your scapegoat, you’ll be letting the true root of your problems off the hook.
Instead of just cutting your marketing dollars, consider investing more time and energy into making your marketing strategy work. Contact Quez Media for a free consultation today, and we’ll help you audit and revitalize your current marketing approach.
