It seems there isn’t much good news about the economy these days. Huge drops in the value of the stock market, tight credit markets that make it difficult to get needed funding, home foreclosures, where does it end?

Small (and large) businesses are looking to see where they can cut back to conserve cash or to match real or anticipated drops in revenue. Marketing and advertising is frequently near the top of the list of things to cut when times get tough.

I think that’s a mistake.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suggesting that everyone just go on their merry way and spend like we’re in boom times. Business owners should be taking a hard look at their spending, including what they spend on marketing. I think the mistake is reflexively cutting marketing spending entirely or making a blanket decision to cut all the marketing activities by some amount.

Here’s why.

It’s marketing that makes the cash register ring

All of the things a business does to market itself is what makes people choose to spend their money with that business. Marketing is the frequent reminder to the market that a solution to their problem exists. It’s the voice in the customer’s ear saying “hey, remember me. I take care of your problems.” When that voice is silenced, it becomes very easy for the market to forget about you altogether.

What you should be doing is taking a good look at how all the things you do perform. Continue to invest in the marketing activities that return more in sales than they cost to implement. Drop or fix the activities that cost more than they contribute. But this is something you should be doing no matter the state of the economy.

Many of your competitors will cut their marketing and advertising

This presents a great opportunity for you. When the competition goes silent, you get an uncluttered environment in which to talk to the market. When yours is the only voice they hear, they will naturally come to you in larger numbers.

Seize this opportunity to steal market share from the competition, and you win twice. First, you win in the short term because a larger proportion of the market is buying from you. At worst, this cushions the blow from reduced spending overall. At best, you can actually grow form the influx of new customers.

Second, you win in the long term because many of those new customers will stay with you (assuming you deliver) after the economy recovers. Now you have a larger customer base whose spending is growing with the economy, lifting your sales even more than if you had just held on to your existing customers.

You will almost certainly have to make some changes to the specific tactics you use to promote your business, but the key is to stay in front of your market as much as possible. Next week, we’ll take a look at some high return marketing activities that can help you weather the economic storm.

Speaking of high return activities, my friend Bill Baren is putting on the Time Experts Telesummit starting this week. He’s lined up a series of experts to help you get a better handle how to most productively use your time. Registration is free until tomorrow, October 14th. The return on free is huge. Check it out.