When economic times turn bad and unemployment is on the rise, people tend to network more. In this social media-enabled era that means that many increasingly turn to online social networks and communities. So the counter-intuitive thing to do in this economic downturn - engage more aggressively with your customers, prospects and detractors in social media and social networks. And when you do, remember that the most important behavioral attribute is not transparency, but empathy and reciprocity. Geoffrey Ramsey, founder and CEO of eMarketer, has written the first major report or whitepaper for eMarketer in about eight years. What compelled him to get back in the saddle? The belief that NOW is not the time to cut marketing budgets but to invest in your customers and prospects. Read More...
Like consumers and homeowners, America’s corporations binged on easy credit when times were flush, racking up huge debts. Now the bills are due, and paying them back will not be easy, or cheap. This year alone, more than $700 billion in corporate loans will come due, according to Standard & Poor’s. That is the size of the federal bailout of the financial sector. Many companies were counting on being able to borrow more money to meet those obligations and kick their debt farther down the road. But with the credit markets still tight, corporations are being forced to pay much higher interest rates than they did a few years ago, putting more strain on balance sheets already hammered by falling profits and a grinding recession. This means that more cuts are coming to corporate America and marketing is going to hit and hit hard.
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There are major signs that the online market is doing very well thank you very much. Century 21 is taking all their ad dollars out of TV and putting them into the Web, President Obama is going to sign a $650 million bill that is for technology, including more high speed Internet access, and he wants to redo the whole White House Internet presence and spend more time online communicating with people. In addition to all this Edmunds is going to invest $10 million in an online ad campaign to drive and drive sales of new cars and several US car manufacturers have indicated a major increase in interactive spending. Now what do they know that your company doesn't? Read More...
