Tigers Never Starve

So, how many months into this challenging economy? As is often the case when the economy slows and stays slow, I keep hearing people cutting their marketing budgets. To me, that’s incredibly idiotic. Marketing and smart advertising are the only expenditures that directly produces profit. In addition, competitors are cutting their marketing budgets, making their customers vulnerable to aggressive marketers.

Here’s a recent example of someone who gets it. This industry has a number of free, advertising-supported newsletters and magazines – both digital and printed. One free, digital newsletter is kicking everyone’s ass. Their web site traffic is up. They’re increasing the number of subscribers and advertisers. And, they need to hire more staff. This success is happening despite the fact that the newsletter is digital only and that many of its potential advertisers don’t totally “get” online advertising. Did I mention the newsletter is free?

Why are they succeeding where others fail?

Here’s what I’ve observed. First, they are totally niche focused (they publish in several niches but each one has its own dedicated staff and they operate like a startup). Second, because they knew the economy was going south, they found ways to stay relevant to their reader and their advertisers. Third, they’ve cranked up their “presence” in places where you ‘see’ them. They send out extra newsletters which subscribers welcome as ‘need to know’ news (and offer those special editions as ‘exclusives’ to advertisers). They also send out extra offers from advertisers. They  started attending events where they hold networking events. I’ve been told those events are always overbooked.

The one thing I might recommend is the creation of a series of educational emails or online demonstrations to convert the potential advertisers that still don’t see the benefit of online marketing. In addition, I’d suggest they partner with an offline advertising firm focused on their niche so they can start reaching people in their snail mailbox, where they’d have to compete with their printed competitors but if done right, could dominate that space as well.

The lesson, even in a challengine economy, Tigers never starve.