Although marketing is a complex subject that is worthy of its own field of study, there is a basic core of marketing that most small businesses can profit from. 

To make the most basic core of marketing theory and tactics more accessible to small business owners, the staff of Retailing Together is developing a guide to basic marketing, one of several guides we are working on. 

We’ll be releasing the guide in parts, and we’re announcing the first two parts today. The Marketing Primer is the overview of the contents of the guide, and the first chapter covers the concept of the Marketing Mix.

The first day of the Action Sports Retailer show in San Diego opened notably more somber than the ASR Fall show. The reduction in the size of the show is immediately apparent: the show occupies probably 60% of the floor space compared to the fall 2008 show. The mood in the seminars and panel discussions has been similar: gloomy, with a strong emphasis on basics.

At the first seminar, “Thinking Outside the Box: Staying Relevant in This Market” the four panelist returned repeatedly to marketing basics, admonishing retailers and brands to:

• Identify a market niche for the company
• Differentiate the company from its competitors
• Develop a vision statement and market position statement
• Review the store’s entire inventory and jettison products that are not performing
• Develop a connection to their customers and their community

The second seminar, “10 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Website”  told a similar story for online marketing: businesses need to be aware of basic website design, SEO and email marketing.  Those that do not will be at a significant competitive disadvantage. 

Several manufacturers and consultants talked about manufacturers’  frustration with retailers because too many retailers don’t manage their businesses well. Too few retailers have POS systems, understand inventory management and Open To Buy planning or have websites. The consultants and other commenters expect that many of these retailers will not survive the downturn, leaving the recovery to those retailers that have developed these basic business skills. 

The messages is that retailers and brands that will survive the downturn are those the have strong fundamental business and marketing practices, and all businesses would be wise to focus on the fundamentals now, before they run into trouble.

In a September 2008 report, Marketing Sherpa reported that about 50% of companies surveyed expect to increase their budgets for email marketing and social media marketing. Additionally, 83% expect to decrease their radio and TV advertising, and 60% will decrease print advertising.  Here is the chart from the Marketing Sherpa Report:

This chart also indicates, for instance, that of the 382 marketing managers that Marketing Sherpa polled in September, 20% said they would be decreasing their spending on social networks, which they call “Web 2.0″,  and 48% of marketers would be increasing spending on social networks. Presumably, the remainder of the marketers ( 32% ) reported “no change”. ( We’ll ignore for a moment the erroneous conflation of social networks with Web 2.0. )

The research isn’t really surprising if you’ve been paying attention to online marketing for the last few years, but it does indicate that the shift from offline to online marketing is continuing.

For apparel vendors, this research has a few specific lessons: 

• If you don’t have plans for email marketing, start now. There is a simple reason for the planned increase in email marketing: it works. 
• Conference and trade shows – “Event Marketing” " has long been unpopular but  considered mandatory. That seems to be changing, and it may be that we’ll see a significant decline in conference attendance in the next year. Perhaps the decline already began when Quicksilver pulled out of the Action Sports Retailer trade show. 
• Social networks are getting more interesting. Social networks still don’t generate much traffic to corporate websites, but they are becoming much more popular for connecting with customers. Does your store have a Facebook page?

ExtactTarget turned us on to the chart in a post on January 12.  That post has additional analysis for what this data means specifically for email.