7:45-8:30AM        REGISTRATION AND NETWORKING

8:30 - 9:15AM         FACTS ON THE VALUE OF MARKETING DURING A DOWNTURN
Now is the time to separate myth from fact on what it takes to survive and thrive in a downturn. We’ll call on recessionary marketing research from the 1920’s  to the 1990’s to glean insights on how successful marketers innovated, changed and thrived to emerge stronger and with greater market share than ever.

9:15 - 9:45AM        THE NEW PLAYBOOK FOR MARKETING IN A RECESSION

Before we embark on the path to recession resistant marketing, we’ll set the stage with a framework that you can use to guide you marketing decisions, budget discussions and recessionary marketing strategy. Based on leading research from McKinsey & Company, AdAge and other thought leaders, this playbook will serve as your roadmap through the rest of the day.

9:45-10:00AM        BREAK

10:00-11:00PM         HOW TO THINK ABOUT PRICING AND BUDGETING IN A DOWNTURN

There are simply some things that all marketers must do during a downturn. In this section we’ll cover the essentials of how to think about pricing, discounting and coupon strategies on a downturn along with some essential discussion on budgets and marketing spending. We’ll review case examples of what leading marketers from all industries have done in recessions and learn from their results.

11:00-12:00PM         DIGITAL AND EMERGING MARKETING STRATEGIES IN A DOWNTURN

Digital-centered and social media marketing certainly has a mass appeal, but there’s much more to these new age tools than just their modern day buzz worthiness. There is real value in shifting a portion of your marketing budget and efforts to the digital realm. We’ll cut through the clutter and lay out clear strategies for making the most of todays most popular and effective digital marketing tools like blogs, social networks, online advertising, and search engine marketing to help you achieve a rapid return on investment.

12:00- 12:45PM        NETWORKING LUNCH

Connect with your colleagues and share insights with each other on how to market your way through these tough times.

12:45-2:45PM         RECESSIONARY SURVIVAL TACTICS: WHAT’S WORKING AND WHAT’S NEXT

We’ll call on the collective wisdom of over 100 articles, whitepapers and recent interviews with real-life marketers and business owners on what’s working today, how it’s working and uncover dozens of ideas, tactics and strategic options that you may not have thought of that could be just the ticket to jumpstart your marketing brain and lead to marketing success in the 2009 recession.

2:45-3:00PM        BREAK

3:00-3:450PM         OFFBEAT MARKETING: FRUGAL AND CREATIVE WAYS TO GAIN MARKET SHARE IN A RECESSION

What is marketing if we don’t have some fun, right? In this section, we’ll review a host of intriguing case studies of ordinary marketers who have done some extraordinary things in tough times to break into new markets, pursue their competitor’s customers, win market share and have a good time in bad times.

3:45-4:30PM         PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: THE RECESSIONARY MARKETING ROADMAP

During this session, we’ll take everything we’ve learned today and create an individualized 90-day marketing roadmap.

4:30-4:45PM         REFLECTIONS ON MARKETING IN A DOWNTURN: DISCUSSION AND Q&A

Before we depart, we’ll engage in an interactive Q&A and problem solving session with the speaker and audience that will help everyone attending to learn by example, get answers to their questions on marketing in a recession and leave with action-oriented objectives to put the day’s learning to work immediately upon returning to the office.

Time permitting; we may also leverage this time to conduct a series of “Marketing Makeovers” with some of the participating companies in the audience. We’ll dive deep into specific, emerging or hypothetical marketing challenges where recessionary marketing tools and tactics will provide a competitive marketing edge, illustrating precisely how the concepts discussed throughout the day can be applied to individual marketing challenges.

4:45PM            EVENT END

Interactive Exercises:

  • Marketing in a recession case studies
  • 90 day recessionary marketing jumpstart plan exercise
  • Word-of-mouth and referral marketing exercise