You only need to glance at a newspaper headline or catch 30 seconds of CNN news to realize that we are in one of the most challenging economic times in recent history.  As the CMO of Lyris, I've had to tackle the same tough issues you're facing at your own businesses, and my company is looking to me to make the smartest marketing decisions during this tough time.

The one thing that I keep reminding myself of, even when times seem stressful, is how good we have it from a measurability perspective. If you've been in the marketing business for any length of time, you'll know exactly what I mean. Over the course of my career, I've been in situations similar to the one we're in now – where the economy and the stock market were wreaking havoc on the business world. I've gone into the meetings to defend my marketing budget armed only with "evidence" that was based on little more than hunches and hopes. 

When the CEO asked what would happen if we cut the marketing budget by 25 percent, my answer may have sounded unconvincing because I myself was not convinced. In those earlier days of marketing, I just didn't have many proven choices. I could either run the print ad or not run the print ad. I couldn't say, "If we cut the marketing budget by 25 percent, we will generate 30 percent fewer leads and 6 percent less revenue."

A Time of Turmoil ... and Empowerment

I bring up all of this because it signifies the starkest difference between the current economic situation and similar situations in the past. Think back to the dot-com bubble bursting in 2001 - which certainly doesn't seem like that long ago. Consider this: Seven years ago, our marketing choices were much more limited than they are today. Print advertising still commanded the lion's share of the budget. Banner ads were the mainstay of online marketing, and batch-and-blast email marketing was just hitting full speed.

Today, even though we're in a difficult spot, we are so much more empowered than we used to be. We have the option of shifting our spending to online-marketing tactics that are more flexible, that require shorter lead times for developing creative and that demonstrate measurable ROI.

That measurability and flexibility have become critical in these last few months, when we've all been in a fog of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt that I call the "FUD trap." Were we in a recession or heading toward a global depression? Because no one knew, the focus of everyone in the C-level suite went from long-range planning to short-term crisis monitoring. In this FUD trap, budget planning – especially for marketing – almost completely froze.

That's put many of us marketers in a virtual holding pattern – barreling toward 2009 without an approved budget. On the one hand, we've been asked to prove our results and continue executing marketing and lead-generation activities. On the other hand, it's hard to do that when there's a lot of confusion surrounding how much we'll actually have to spend.

How can we sign up for that trade show six months in advance or that banner-ad buy three months in advance if we don't know for sure how much cash we have?

We can't. While we're all knee deep in FUD, we've got to focus on tactics that are completely under our control, like email marketing and search marketing.

Smart Companies Are Changing Their Marketing Mix

The companies that will emerge from the FUD trap in a position of strength are not the ones who cut marketing budgets across the board. At the end of this cycle, the companies that see marketing as an expense will end up with a weaker sales pipeline and smaller market share than companies that do everything they can to make their marketing dollars work harder during this downturn.

When considering which marketing programs to scale back and which to invest in, you should consider these factors:

• Lead times: Focus on tactics you can execute in days, not weeks or months. That means print ads, webinars, trade shows and even online banner ads that generally require you to make commitments and ramp up creative months in advance might get less focus.
  
  
• The ability to change on a dime: Long-term contracts that limit your ability to react to your new budgetary realities are out. Tactics that let you easily dial your spend up or down at will are in.
  
  
• Measurability: You need to know – and be able to produce hard data on – what each tactic you're investing in is returning in terms of leads and sales.
  
  

At Lyris, for example, we haven't decreased our marketing spend, but we have dramatically altered where we put our money. In 2008, we almost completely moved away from print advertising. In 2009, we're decreasing our banner-ad spend and focusing more on SEO, paid search and email marketing to our internal lists.

Why?

• Because these tactics are squarely under our own control.
• We can spend more or less at will.
• We can dramatically improve measurable ROI just by maniacally focusing on doing more of what's working and less of what's not working.
  

Flexible, Measurable Marketing - it's not Just for Crises Anymore

Happily, the FUD trap appears to be on the verge of ending. Marketers are now making plans and decisions again. But even as things change, I predict that the shifts we're all making toward more flexible, measurable tactics will be permanent. Keeping a solid mix of actionable online-marketing approaches in your marketing plans will ensure that your company is ready for whatever comes up. It puts you in the best position to confidently defend your budget and show the real impact that marketing has on the business.

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About the Author

Blaine Mathieu is chief marketing officer for Lyris. Blaine is responsible for Lyris' brand and product strategy, including driving marketing initiatives for the company's Lyris HQ™ integrated-marketing suite and its Lyris ListManager™ email-marketing software.

Related Resources:

• Subscribe to Inside Lyris HQ our monthly online-marketing newsletter.
• Download free online-marketing guides, tools and webinars in the Lyris Online-Marketing Resource Center.

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