No marketing budget for a year…

My last post about marketing that’s not really marketing made me think about a simple exercise that can help all of us focus our attention first on products, services and customer experience – then on how to leverage marketing to accelerate awareness and growth.

Imagine for a moment that you were not allowed to spend a dime on marketing for an entire year. No advertising, no PR, no direct mail, no emails. You could not proactively market your business. You could only invest time, energy, resources and budget into your products, services and customer experience.

You are, in essence, counting on your customers to market and grow your business for you – based on how effective your products and services perform.

How would that change your approach? How would it change how and where you allocate your time and resources each day? How would it change your perspective on how, and where, to invest in current products & services?

How would you do business differently?

Now imagine you had that marketing budget back. Would you need it?