IDC is putting numbers around something tech marketers already know: 2009 is the worst year for vendor-side tech marketing jobs and budgets since the dot-com bust. IDC projects that 6,000 tech vendor marketing jobs will be cut by the time the dust settles at the end of 2009. Marketing budgets will be down 8.3% over 2008 levels. That’s the inhouse … Read More
Building scalability into influencer relations programs
Influencer relations programs focus on 1-to-1 relationships and therefore can be resource-intensive. So it’s a good idea to figure out where you can achieve economies of scale and how to go about doing it. Here are 3 areas with big potential. Flexible, modular playbooks. A grand plan may work well with a handful of influencers, but it won’t scale across … Read More
Attending BiteBash tonight
I’ll be at BiteBash in San Francisco tonight, “Navigating Your Brand through the Great Recession”. It’s such a timely topic. Bite’s David Hargreaves sums up the risks and opportunities that surround marketing right now: “Harvard Business Review recently reported that companies who slash marketing spending often find that they later have to invest much more than they saved in order … Read More
Marketing with a $0 budget
Imagine you’re the marketing lead at a small company and you’re gearing up to launch a product, service, or even the company. One morning, the CEO informs you, “The marketing budget is now $0, and we will figure out a way to get to market.” That’s one of 6 things that CEOs of small companies and start-ups should be saying … Read More
IDC: marketing budget cuts of 15% for 1H2009
Rich Vancil, vice president of IDC’s Executive Advisory Group, blogs a sad prediction: marketing budgets will be cut roughly 15% during the first half of 2009. He also makes an interesting point on the virtues of investing consistently in marketing: I have believed that good marketing investment policy has elements of a large inertial flywheel: let it stop spinning and … Read More