Year end is the time when business have established or are finalizing budgets for the following year. This is also the time of year when businesses and owners analyze their investments from the previous year. Unnecessary expenses get a hard look and the budget for that expense is cut back or even eliminated. The marketing budget is one of the first items to be cut. I say NOT SO FAST!

In down times, the marketing budget is the first to go, but not because companies want to stop marketing, but because it is one item on the budget that can be controlled. The reality is that you are gaining, losing or maintaining market share. A reel-back of an offensive marketing strategy to a prevent-marketing strategy may create the opposite of the desired effect. (Not unlike some of our favorite football teams that lose football games in the fourth quarter.) Executives cut marketing budgets to save money. This works in the short term, but may create a long-term deficit as you lose market share to your competitor who is staying aggressive throughout the fourth quarter.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could increase returns on your investments AND increase market share? Well you can, with effective marketing.

Ineffective marketing is an expense. Effective marketing is an investment. Marketing should be increasing sales and increasing market share. The challenge is in knowing what is effective and what is ineffective. Whatever marketing program you put into place, be sure to establish measurements of effectiveness. To guarantee whether a program is effective or not, you have to track results. Based on results, you stop the ineffective program (expense) or adjust the program and track the results once again. If you have a program that works, you will know by tracking results, and you would be crazy to eliminate that successful marketing program (investment) from your budget. On the contrary you will want to do more of it.

Systems to track marketing programs are key, but are often left out of the plan. Some programs are easy to track and some can become difficult. Tracking systems are the key. A system is easy to follow, simplifies the tracking process and, as a result, is conducive to staff buy-in. But you’re not done yet.

Establish what success looks like. Track your marketing results and measure those results against your definition of success. So the next time your CFO tells you that marketing expenses are too high and your budget is on the chopping block, you are able show her how successful marketing programs are. Once you’ve established that your expenses are actually investments, I’m sure she will be happy to increase your marketing budget and nominate you for Investor of the Year! …Good luck with that.