This is like Atlantis. Everyone has heard of it, but no one seems to be able to find it.

I really want to clarify something. You see, I have been hearing many people speak of Zero Cost Marketing; and that is so very wrong. By all the laws of nature and of commerce, how can there ever be anything of value for free? There is no such thing as Zero Cost Marketing.

Having said that, you must also know that there is such a thing as Zero Dollar Marketing. You see, it is possible to get things done without spending a single cent. How is this different from Zero Cost?

Your time, your staff’s time, talents and efforts – these are all “costs”. To get anything done, you need to spend time and effort. You might not need to spend dollars. In that sense, it is possible to have Zero Dollar Marketing, but certainly not zero cost marketing.

Why is this interesting?

As more and more corporations move towards greater accountability, Marketing Metrics have become more important. Measuring the returns on your marketing efforts is the new cool. You can no longer hide behind the “… it won an award” thing to justify your campaigns.

More and more, managers and business owners look at performance. They try to measure what is spent vs what results are generated. Simply put, an ROI model that divides results by marketing dollars spent will look fantastic when the dollars are very low. And as you Maths teacher would tell you, it will “tend to infinity as it approaches zero”.

Zero Dollar Marketing is even more important today because:

• Marketing is now more accountable than ever before for solid returns
• Marketing is under more pressure than ever before during this economic downturn
• Marketers need to demonstrate positive contribution
• Companies and businesses need to save every dollar they can

Do you or your company employ Zero Dollar Marketing techniques?

Alright, its acronym time! F.E.A.R is the word and I would love to hear what you have to say about it.

As we face bad times, most likely, we make the bad times worse. Fear is one of the culprits. Like the deer staring at the headlights of an oncoming car, we are sometimes so paralysed by fear that we fail to act. As human beings, we pride ourselves on our ability to be rational, to be sentient even. We are supposed to be able to recognise danger, analyse it and then find a solution.

That sounds really good when it is someone else’s problems. But when we are faced with it ourselves, we experience fear at a whole new level. Everyone is fearful at this time, in one way or another, at some level. Just wanted to share this with all of you:

Fear is a falshood that robs you of reason
Expect the worse and it will happen just as you planned
Act positively and fight as fear is a coward that flees
Reality is usually quite boring and mundane when not tainted by fear

May 2009 bring you many new challenges, opportunities and be as exciting as the wild roller coaster that it has turned out to be. See you on the other side!

You know, one of the most silliest, stupidest piece of “wisdom” I have given over the years, was that people should be spending more marketing dollars during a recession as that was an opportunity to quickly win ground.

Well, we are all slipping and sliding down the merry slope of one of the worse recessions in recent history. Eating my words seem not as bad when compared to the disaster I would be facing if I failed to learn.

Reading Vivienne’s “Farmer or Hunter During Economic Winter” post, made me realise how silly my lofty thoughts actually were.

In winter, the bleak weather forbids us to do anything. We cannot go out with impunity, no matter how warmly we dress. Even well prepared, it is dangerous and life-threatening to step out. Farmers take winter time to rest, make repairs, enjoy quality time with family and friends. There is no point going out to sow. The ground is too hard to till. There is no point in doing anything much. All they can do is conserve their energy and resources and be ready to hit the ground running when spring comes around.

So, how do you do marketing in a recession? For sure, you cannot just stop everything. But prudence is definitely required. You cannot afford to squander your resources and your marketing strength. Yet, to hide away until winter is over is not right too. One of the best parts of winter must surely be the festivals that go on in and around the villages. The Christians celebrate Christmas, the Celtics the Yule festival, Chinese celebrate Dong Zhi and there are many more such festivals created around farming communities.

Back to what we should be doing. Knowing what we now know, we need to conserve our resources. Sticking to our famer analogy, repairs need to be made, relationships need to be rekindled, preparations need to be under way for the coming of spring.

Translated to marketing talk:

- Customer Service needs to be maintained. This means that you should not cut back so much that your customer service excellence is compromised
- Communications need to be maintained. While you may no longer wish to run full page spreads, periodic advertising is still needed. Other methods of communications like a web site, a corporate blog, or a corporate newsletter would also work.
- Plan your next campaign. Good marketing campaigns take time and effort. Most of the time, in the heat of the battle for market share and business, we rush through it all. This is a good opportunity to take time to hone your next marketing campaign.

If I were a poor farmer, I might not have that much spare cash to do a lot during winter, but all of the above can be done to some extend. Especially the online marketing stuff, they can be done for little or no cost and it would be a crime to neglect them.