The time for speculation, debate and attributing blame has passed. The recession is now a reality, and no business can hope to remain entirely unaffected.

An often overlooked fact is that there is no such thing as a “standard” recession; each have demonstrated individual characteristics and patterns. One thing, however, is certain. The recession will be bad for most businesses. Yet some will not only maintain their existing levels of growth and sales, but will actually prosper despite the economic climate.

So what sets these firms apart from their less-fortunate siblings? One factor is their marketing strategies, capabilities and budgets.

Marketing should never be an afterthought, yet for a bewildering number of companies, that is exactly the case. And too many businesses not only devote insufficient resources to their marketing, but fail to plan for the medium to long-term.

Solid marketing isn't just about a series of immediate, short-term goals and knee-jerk responses to current events. Effective marketing needs to be proactive, and new markets and opportunities need to be sought and even created.

Some businesses may find that planning no more than a few weeks ahead works well during times of prosperity, but in a recession, greater foresight is required. This “glaringly obvious” fact is one of the main reasons that most businesses struggle or fail during difficult financial times, while others actively prosper.

Many businesses make the mistake of selecting their marketing budgets as the first to go when trying to cut down their costs, yet this can often prove to be disastrous. Those who have the foresight and cash reserves to maintain or even increase their marketing budgets are in a great position to not only ride out the recession with as little damage as possible, but also be in an ideal position for the upturn, as and when it happens.

It’s also important not to let the actions of your competition steer you from your chosen course of action. A common scenario within a competitive market is a burst of almost frantic competitive activity as the crisis begins. Yet as the realities and severity of the problem starts to sink in, this often quickly dies down. Those left standing may then be in the privileged position of having little or no competition.

Yet it’s not all doom and gloom, and you don’t necessarily need large cash reserves to ride out or prosper from the recessions. As well as a multitude of threats, a recession can also offer a variety of different opportunities for the more responsive and adaptable companies. If, for example, a company’s typical users see the price as too high for these times, different pricing models, license structures and even different deliver methods may retain these users and even reach new markets and user groups. A company selling software might do well to consider Software As A Service, multi-user flexibility, monthly subscriptions and so on to entice new and existing customers alike.

So what should you be actually doing during a recession?

If you're not yet actively marketing what you sell, then our Marketing Service can get you up and running as soon as possible. And no matter how advanced or basic your marketing plans, our Web Log Analytics service will give you the knowledge and information that you need to make informed decisions. Our Google AdWords Management service is also ideal for the company wishing to improve their Google AdWords ROI, or for that matter wishing to dip their toes into Google AdWords.

Be seen, be sold.