Downsizing, layoffs, unemployment, and lower-than-expected earnings are becoming repetitive terms on the six o’clock news. But all this doom and gloom should just remind you that your company better get sales up—and fast! And since marketing drives sales, the marketing department is where businesses should focus their efforts and resources.
Unfortunately, marketing departments are often one of the first to feel the impact of lean times, yet they are still expected to perform and yield the same or even better results. If you don’t have strong and successful marketing initiatives, your competition will. The last thing you need is your customers going to a competitor and your sales dropping off. With so many marketing departments now operating with a skeleton staff and an equally bare bones budget, there’s a scramble to find a workable solution.
When your marketing department has a staff of ten doing the work of fifteen, deadlines get pushed back, new campaign ideas get dropped, and tensions rise when there aren’t enough hands and minds to do the work. Budgets can’t be stretched to add on new employees, yet you still need to get top-quality work done—your CEO isn’t going to accept the excuse that you didn’t have enough money or enough help.
