While everyone almost everywhere has been talking about the expected impacts of the US financial crisis on the economy, business, the consumer, growth, here at DirectContact.com we are no exception. One of the main points of discussion has been “how will the down economy impact lead generation budgets?”. Will they be slashed? Will companies hold on their marketing spend for a while to tread cautiously, play by ear and then decide what to do about it? How will this impact B2B lead generation efforts in general?
Well its already clear that there is an impact on business spending with heavy budget cuts on jobs, recruiting and salaries which were amongst the first to get hit. Its almost certain that with the slow spending, companies will shift from growth and expansion mode to a lower gear which will be more conservative and lay more focus on sustaining their current positions in the market and that will significantly impact a number of B2B areas which rely on selling into companies that are expanding their operations so it is going to be a lot of work keeping sales going and maintaininig it at the level it was before the crisis. But will lead generation budgets be cut?
We can’t say for sure. Should they be cut? Surely not!. With the buying slowing down, the selling is going to have to increase and with it, looking for buyers will have step up a notch. Essentially more leads will have to be generated to close the same volumes of sales as before the recession. Logically this should mean increasing spend on lead generation but practically this is not likely to happen at all and marketers will be pushed to figure out how to generate more leads from existing or perhaps even reduced budgets.
Hopefully companies shouldn’t panic and stay on course with their plans for developing existing operations. Once things start to recover and the optimism is back, the budgets will also bounce back. Till then the only message we can pass on is don’t lose hope and let depression take over. Stay positive, stay on track and keep selling!