You will need to consider which priority basket gets what quantum of fund allocation and you might want to do the allocation very differently from the boom years. These are the times when the priority should be on retention and hence focus on life time value of the customer. You will need to re-look at the good old CRM again, and put a lot more energies behind it, with more aggressive reach out strategies and with more competitive and exciting offers and promos.

In a recession the consumer will still buy but with a different mindset, especially when it comes to new buyers and customers. They will stand in for a hard negotiation and will drive a tougher bargain. That is another reason for you to re-look at and re-vitalize your CRM. Your existing loyal user / customer is your sure shot bet. Hold the churn and try and ensure value adds to your golden customers.

2. Create a hard ROI metric for your overall marketing plan.
And try and keep the ambiguity out. Normally ambiguity creeps in, disguised in veils of brand awareness, brand recall, brand positioning, etc. If it cannot be measured in monetary terms don’t have it on your metric.

Better still create a nifty dashboard app for your marketing spends – and every business needs its own unique dashboard. And don’t cheat on this by changing parameters as the results come in.

Your ROI metric will help you question the well established marketing practice (read as flab), and allow you to focus on marketing which delivers.

When creating your ROI metric, build a strong component of customer centric measurement, rather than depending on the “circulation and readership / viewership” data.

3. Ask your partner agency to re-position and re-create its campaigns keeping in mind the above ROI metric.
It might frustrate them (and you) as the most comfortable points of references on the marketing spends will suddenly start to disappear. Your agency will also need to transform its marketing and advertising approach to be far more responses lead as against traditionally being creativity lead.

4. Use digital outreach more and every business needs it.
It is more economical than most other media options, it ensures relevance in terms of reach and it is measurable.

However, a word of caution, if you are using digital media the way you use mass media – then do a rethink, although experimentation is far more economical in the digital formats of marketing. Do adopt the more robust and results proven mechanism like search based marketing.

Consumers are increasingly following a principal we call “ROBO” – where they “research online” but “buy offline”. By being well represented on the web (and I don’t mean another website), you will increase your brand conversion possibilities significantly.

5. Increase the use of measurable and quantifiable media options.
If your overall approach is going to be “revenue driven”, you will notice that the media options which claim “brand recall” will start to fall further down your preference list.

You should bank heavily on experiential activation in the last mile as a way to ensure quantifiable results along with measurable impact and trials.

Various consumer studies indicate that 70 percent of the brand decisions are made in the last mile, which points to the need to have a larger allocation of your spends towards winning in the last mile.

Successful strategies in the last mile lead to trails which lead to conversions. Spend more on the visibility and accessibility in the last mile.

6. Increase your allocation on trade marketing.
Most organizations tend to cut back on incentives and loyalty schemes build for channel partners and sales teams in times on slow down. This move could be counter productive – and in fact I would recommend that there should be an increase in these allocations as these guys can really make or break your brand.

However, what should be done is to build incentive programs which are more “economical” in terms of roll-out and execution. For example, you might want to build a series of online reward programs rather than exhausting all the funds on a single overseas jaunt with its super expensive air fare.

However, while marketing spends are viewed as easy to cut back upon, the most important thing is not to slow down or black out your presence in the market. You will need to re-orient in terms of relevance and not exit for sure.

Quite like the principle of compound interest, a little investment, applied consistently and with relevance, will yield great dividends. A sustained marketing effort will help ensure that your pipeline is consistently replenished, leads are properly nurtured, churned minimized and your market presence is maintained.

The good news is that during my conversations with all my marketing friends across Asia, most have indicated that the cuts are not severe as the Asian story (esp. India) is still bullish in the long term. The brands which market themselves in Asia (and all of them now do) will increasingly look at this geography as their primary business driver across the world. So as the marketing axis of the of the world shifts firmly in favor of Asia, go ahead and face up the recession with relevant, consistent and measurable spends.

Also remember, this is just the right time to cut back on the flab and get back into shape.