If your company spends $1000 per week on marketing then you could save $1000 per week by not doing any marketing. That is true but it is simple and shortsighted view of situation. However, if revenue generated from that marketing is $1010 you have actually just lost $10 by not doing it.

Most times margin is not that slim. We generally bring in around 10 times what we spend in any given week. That means for every $1000 we spend on marketing we bring in $10,000. If we decided that we were only going to spend half of what we were normally spending we would automatically save half of our budget. That is great but we would likely lose up to half of our weekly sales income. In trying to save half our budget we actually lost 9 times that amount.

It all comes back to your Return On Investment. That’s ROI I am always talking about. If you only make what you spend on your marketing it is not doing its job. The money that you spend on your marketing is your investment. The money you bring in on sales is Return On that Investment. That is why your ROI is most important statistic to consider when trying to divide up your marketing budget. Putting more money into a marketing strategy that has a higher ROI doesn’t cost you more money, it makes you more money. Saving money by lowering your marketing budget doesn’t sound so enticing when you think about it that way. Unfortunately many businesses cut their marketing budget first when trying to stay afloat during slow periods. They are actually hastening their downfall.

You have heard it time and time again, "It takes money to make money." It is as true today as it ever has been. You have a good product or service, you run your business well, only thing that you need is good marketing and that will eventually pay for itself.

Perhaps by now you are convinced that you need to spend some money on promoting your business.

Maybe you are still stopped by big question, "How?" What do you really need to know, and how can you actually make it work?

Let’s start with "Basic Principles" of promotion.

What is Promotion?

Many companies have used this as a reason to send out fewer or smaller mailings in an attempt to keep their costs down. Here’s a quote from an issue of Direct Marketing News:

“Despite a string of healthy annual increases, growth of direct mail expenditures is expected to slow over next four years. Direct mail continued to grow in 2001 but slowed because of anthrax scare”, study said.

The study also said, "Direct mail will continue to expand during forecast period but at a slower pace than in past because of emergence of e-mail marketing and postal rate hikes, which will force marketers to limit mailings."