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Why cutting back on marketing is a costly mistake for startup businesses

Running a startup business comes with tough financial decisions, especially in challenging economic times. When businesses look to cut costs, marketing often ends up on the chopping block. On the surface, this may seem like a logical move, focusing only on immediate operational expenses and trimming what appears to be non-essential. However, cutting back on marketing is one of the riskiest cost-saving measures any business can take, both in the short term and long term. Here is why reducing your marketing spend does not make financial sense.

Marketing is not an expense…it is an investment

Marketing is often mistaken for a discretionary expense, but in reality, it is an investment that fuels business growth. Unlike fixed costs such as rent or utilities, marketing is directly tied to revenue generation. When done effectively, it attracts new customers, nurtures existing ones, and strengthens brand presence. Cutting marketing reduces visibility, which in turn affects sales, leading to a downward spiral that is difficult to recover from.

Imagine a business as a fire. Marketing is the fuel that keeps the fire burning. If you stop adding fuel, the fire will eventually die out. Similarly, if you cut marketing, fewer people will find your business, resulting in lower revenue and an even tighter budget.

Your competitors will not pause...why should you?

While you may be scaling back, your competitors are likely to continue their marketing efforts. This means that while you are reducing your presence, they are increasing theirs. Customers who would have chosen your business may now turn to competitors who are actively promoting their offerings. When you eventually restart marketing, you may find that you have lost significant ground to businesses that maintained their efforts.

Think of marketing like a race. If you stop running while others keep going, you will have to work twice as hard to catch up-often at a much higher cost.

Marketing creates consistency and trust

Customers do not buy from businesses they do not trust, and trust is built through consistent brand presence. Whether it is social media, email marketing, search engine visibility, or paid advertising, your audience needs to see and hear from you regularly to remember and engage with your business.

Stopping marketing efforts can make your brand appear inactive or unreliable. If a potential customer searches for your business and finds outdated social media pages, a lack of recent promotions, or reduced online visibility, they may assume you are struggling or even closed. Staying present and consistent reassures customers and maintains the credibility of your brand.

Stopping and restarting costs more

It is much more expensive to regain lost traction than to maintain steady momentum. If you stop running ads, for example, it can take months to rebuild the same level of audience engagement and brand awareness. Social media algorithms favour accounts that post consistently, and search engine rankings drop when websites stop producing fresh content.

Rebuilding this from scratch requires more time, effort, and budget than keeping a steady level of marketing activity. The smarter financial decision is to maintain marketing efforts at a sustainable level rather than pausing completely.

There are smarter ways to cut costs without sacrificing marketing

Rather than eliminating marketing, businesses should focus on optimising their strategies. Here are a few ways to be cost-effective without disappearing from your audience’s radar:

• Prioritise high-ROI activities: Focus on strategies that bring the best return, such as email marketing, SEO, and social media engagement.
• Repurpose content: Instead of constantly creating new content, repurpose existing assets into different formats.
• Organic marketing: Engaging in community discussions, optimising search engines, and building relationships on social media can provide significant exposure without a heavy budget.
• Review paid advertising spend: Rather than cutting ads completely, refine targeting and focus on high-converting campaigns.

Our commitment to cost-effective solutions

In these times, our team has spent time looking at ways to make our pricing more affordable. As a result, we have now put together more cost-effective plans, in addition to our current pre-made plans. If you would like to find out what these plans involve, please get in contact and email us at weare@plentyofstuff.studio.

Our thoughts

Cutting back on marketing might seem like an easy way to save money, but the long-term impact can be devastating. Businesses that maintain marketing during challenging times are the ones that emerge stronger, with a larger share of the market. Rather than eliminating marketing, the focus should be on making it more strategic and efficient.

Marketing is what keeps your business visible, trusted, and competitive. In times of financial strain, the best approach is not to cut marketing but to optimise it. Keep your fire burning-because once it goes out, reigniting it is far more costly than keeping it alive.

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Written by Kiana Douglin

Written on Thursday, 20 February 2025

Kiana Douglin

Author/ Director, Plenty of Stuff Studio

Kiana draws on years of marketing experience, playing a key role in helping businesses grow and launching startups with effective marketing strategies and operations. Her background combines marketing expertise with skills in sales and events. Outside of work, she finds inspiration in nature-hiking in the mountains, chasing waterfalls, and traveling the world-while her love for poetry and music fuels her creative spirit.

Read more about our marketing team.