Is it important to do marketing and communications during a recession?

Nokukhanya recently ran a workshop with young entrepreneurs who raised this question which raised very interesting debate and we hope that this may assist with the answer.

While marketing and advertising is very beneficial to the growth of a business it comes at quite a high cost, and usually is a cost that most business cant afford, and this really served as the crux of the debate. Nokukhanya obviously took a pro marketing approach whilst the financial colleagues tried to quantify and denounce the spend. While we tried our best we had to concede that the answer really lied in between. The reality of the South African market is that it relies heavy on large corporates to deliver product and no matter how hard you try our recessionary times may not effectively grow your business.

In true entrepreneurial fashion, Nokukhanya has decided to launch a cheaper marketing and communication package offered to the market which primarily is the setup and creation of free media over the internet using social networking and business listings, this effectively means you grow brand awareness and in order to maintain your business.

What do you think

The "old" ways of marketing and doing things are a dieing bread.

Customers these days want to be engaged and we have the tools to do this at a fraction of the cost of the old ways.

The problem of it costing too much comes in on the management level of using these tools.

For me personally, being a small business owner in the real sense as it’s me that is responsible for all of it Marketing, production, and sales. Etc.

I think of Marketing not as a quick fix but a long-term investment. However how to go about it is hard to decide. The so called ‘New Way’ of internet marketing is really a mine field. The costs involved are significant when the business is small and there limited funds. Most of the guys I know who are all small bizz’s are barely holding on to running costs. So an investment in the future although important is frightening as the wrong choice can be disastrous.

Free media (internet) exposure is great, and there are quite a few offers out there were you can list your company and even provide images for product promotion. But it doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t found in the millions of others that are listed.

As far as using the tools correctly I find (and this might just be me) I am just one person I cant be everywhere at once I have a production to run and this takes a bit of time and energy which means I am scared to be multi media linked as I can’t always be by the phone or on my PC answering mails. A potential client or lead might be missed giving them the wrong impression. Plus my skills on the PC are ok but not great.

Those are very valid concerns that a majority of small business owners face.

Where do I find time???

An affordable option to look at will be to outsource the social media management tasks. This is what I do for my clients. Its a fraction of the cost of hiring an employee to do it.

If you want to know more drop me an email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Create conversation on this one, and one just must remember that the growth of internet marketing will be the promotion of your services using social mediums, it wouldnt be worthwhile giving the stats here, but in a nutshell, imagine how many people you can touch simply by advertising a page to your friends on facebook which has a ripple effect just by them punching the like button, this goes out to millions of users.

Im completely pro small business going this route as it reduces the large long term investments of mass media campaigns where ROI is usually low for smaller businesses.

In years to come mass e-mail marketing campaigns and newsletters will eventually dry out as more and more of us simply learn the power of using the delete button so that we dont get distracted and focus on our true focus which is to please our customer.

very correct. Social media is great with its very low entry and ongoing costs. We have 2 points to keep in mind when using it for the best results:

1. Social media should be used as a supplement or addon to some of the more standard marketing methods. It will work well on its own but coupled with other mediums it excels.
2. DON'T SELL on you social media platforms. These are purely to build relationships based on trust. To get that you need to offer a lot of value to the members. They need to be engaged with and conversed.

Social media members want to feel like they a part of something. Get this right and the ripple effect comes into play as they essentially start marketing your brand for you.

I find all this very interesting and you guys have some great points.. Thanks

I would love to know a bit more about multi media platform and how they work or should I say how best to use them

Ok so I'm a bit ummm... doff what is Twitter for example?

Marie-Louise, your business has probably got so much potential because of your products nature,

I would suggest two things if you feel you dont want to spend money on a marketing company in the short term:

1. Ask a friend to help setup a facebook page and twitter address;
2. Google facebook page success stories or similar social media success stories;
3. just do it

Oops, that was three things

I have a facebook page...

i'm hoping to discuse ways of using these outlets effectively.