Is Digital Marketing Recession Proof?

There has been a lot of talk recently about downed markets, a new depression, revenue generation, and the collapse of massive corporations. Negative attitude has been spreading like wildfire through the ranks of my social communities, as well as, my offline social circles. I was pleased to find a blog post today by Jason Baer on Convince&Convert. His post entitled, 5 Reasons Why Digital Marketing Will Thrive in the Recession was one of the highlights of my day (other than the racoon on my window sill).

Jason goes into detail on the five reasons why digital marketing is recession proof. Highlighting everything from the ROI to the short term commitments. If you want the full detailed observation from Jason go read and comment on his post. I wanted to highlight one area where I feel he was absolutely and positively right: Waste Not.

From his post:

There is meaningful financial waste associated with advertising to people who have no interest in your product or service. The superior targeting ability of online marketing will enable companies to focus their reduced marketing dollars solely on likely prospects.

This is the pull marketing strategy at work. The bomber mentality of traditional advertising tends to fatten the advertising budgets of companies who are already in fear of becoming a victim of the recession. A company has an idea of what their target market should be and wastes thousand upon thousands of dollars pushing marketing messages at a majority. Give me a break.

Digital marketing allows you to focus on the people who are already slightly interested in what you are offering: the people hitting your site. Jason talks about the concept of behavioral targeting.

If a prospect reads several pages on Yahoo! about Nissan Altimas and does a search on Yahoo! using a related term, an ad for Valley Nissan dealers can be served up just in time.

Talk about a great way to use pull marketing on a specific person!

Other than the extreme measurability of digital marketing, the ability for a company to target specific niche groups is a huge advantage of digital marketing. Also, the price of using digital marketing is extremely small compared to some traditional advertising budgets.

I think you will find more advertising budgets switching slowly over to a heavier digital model in the months to come. A recession does not mean you should back out on your advertising budgets to lower your overhead. Instead of CUTTING budgets, you should create smarter marketing strategies. Smarter marketing strategies means adding digital marketing into the mix and creating a measurable model for success.

Is digital marketing recession proof? I think so. A measurable return always wins over the long haul and digital marketing can deliver.

What do you think?