The chill winds of hard economic times are blowing across the world and hitting some places more than others.
I’ve refrained from commenting about the economic situation so far, but I will be posting about the implications for copywriting and sales messages.
The “social mood” definitely has implications for sales promotions.
However, that’s not what I’m going to talk about today.
Noticed this item (“Ad Sales Drop 16.4% At New York Times”) in the “Financial Times”…
“The New York Times suffered a 16.4 per cent decrease in June advertising revenues and warned on Wednesday that the effect of high oil prices, a slowing economy and the housing crisis were likely to weigh on its prospects for some time.
‘I think it’s clear that many advertising budgets are tightening up’ said Janet Robinson chief executive of the New York Times company, predicting a ‘tough’ second half of the year.”
It’s a pretty safe assumption that those advertisers cutting their spending are not using direct response copywriting and marketing. Why? Because if they were, they wouldn’t be cutting! The beauty of direct response is that you can measure the effectiveness of advertising and know the Return On Investment (“ROI”). Provided the ROI is positive, you keep running the campaign. If it’s not positive, you change the ad.
In contrast, with conventional “image” advertising you have little or no idea of whether or not it’s working. So, in hard times such advertising is seen as an expense and vulnerable to (rightly) being cut.
When economic conditions are difficult, direct response marketing and copywriting is more valuable than ever. Businesses still need to bring in sales but every dollar spent has to be justified. In these circumstances direct response marketing shines.