Manizesto

Dear business owners,

It’s been a long time since we had a heart to heart talk, and we feel like the time is right to talk about some things that have been on our minds. Hear us out.

First off, we know things are tough right now with the economy being slow and competition stiffer than ever. We know you are having to make difficult decisions about where you invest that might affect whether or not you can stay in business. Believe us when we say, we feel for you. But we’ve also heard - please don’t ask from whom - that you’re considering making cutbacks in marketing. This pains us.

We know we’ve not always been perfect in measuring ROI or tracking marketing initiatives, but the fact that you’ve considered downsizing us shows how little you understand what we do. This is as much our fault as anyone’s, but if we may, let us explain why cutting back marketing is a big mistake.

Remember when you had that meeting with the sales team a few years ago about why they weren’t hitting their sales goals, and their response was that they weren’t getting enough qualified leads? Then you hired us, remember?

We dug in and optimized your website so you ranked on Google; then we started a paid search campaign that increased your revenue by 10% in six months. The sales team started hitting their goals. We also helped you decide to go after that new demographic you hadn’t considered; not to mention the email marketing program that is now responsible for increasing add-on sales by 32%, and the direct mail campaign, the cool viral campaign we did? But we digress…

We have no doubt that this slow economy is going to take its toll on a lot of companies, but with our help, you can make it. Cutting out marketing is like not feeding your dog because you have to carry around a pooper-scooper when you take it for a walk; it will cut down on poop, but it will kill your dog too.

Please give us a chance to prove we can help you through this difficult time.

Sincerely,

The marketing guy/gal at your company

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