As a follow up to the “5 Tips to Increase Holiday Sales” post, here are more details about why a retailer should invest in marketing this season.

This year may be no different from any other. As a retailer, you should want to make money. To make money, you need to sell your products. To sell your products, you need customers. To find customers, you need to market. These are the basics of any business. This year the basics still apply.

If, as a retailer, you are thinking of cutting your marketing budget, your competition already has. You could cut yours and you’d both be investing the same amount and be on equal footing. Or you could maintain your marketing budget, or even increase it, and get more exposure.

If your main direct competitor cuts its budget by 50% and you maintain yours, your exposure is now 66%, 33% more than your competitor. If you doubled your marketing investment, your exposure would grow to 80% and be four times your competitor.

So, if you could get four times the exposure of your primary competitor for only twice your previous investment, doesn’t that seem like a good deal. Oh wait, is it starting to sound too good to be true? Well, this assumes you only have one competitor and you have both invested the same in marketing over the years.

The principle still applies. If most of your competition cuts their marketing, and you maintain or increase yours, your exposure is dramatically affected by their changes.

So, my advice to any retailer is, at a minimum, maintain the same marketing investment as last year. OR, if possible, increase it to take advantage of the increased exposure. The increase can be to expand your current and previous marketing tactics, or to try something new.

I’ve mentioned it before, the classic phrase in marketing is “I know I’m wasting half of my marketing budget; the problem is I don’t know which half.” It never hurts to try something new and different. At worst, you find a method that doesn’t work. At best, you discover a way to bring in more business than you every thought possible!