The manner in which this crisis started is similar to the so-called “The Phoney / Strange War” - “La Drôle de Guerre” at the beginning of the last world war when, for more than half a year (between September 1939 and April 1940) the belligerents waited and analyzed one another without attacking. However, in the meantime, all the measures for war were taken.

Well, just like the “La Drôle de Guerre” what we see now are not the effects of the crisis but the effects of the “prophylactic” measures in view of the announced crisis...
Just think about it: the marketing budgets were already reduced, the suppliers are already pressed to diminish their tariffs, and in the meantime the sales volumes, except for houses, cars and long-use products, were affected only by a slow down, quite normal, if we think that this situation occurs after a long period of uninterrupted increase.
On the other hand, we are, of course, convinced that the crisis will be manifesting itself more and more violently – just like in the Second World War – so it’s not the prevention measures I wish to emphasize.

The question is this: are these the only adequate measures?
We can find the answer in the Direct Marketing area: with approximately 20% of the clients we make more than 80% of the revenue.
Therefore, here lies the danger: if we simply cut the budgets, let’s not stop the campaigns, we could instead reconsider the selection of clients who are targeted by these campaigns.
Or, related to the suppliers’ tariffs: instead of lowering the quality of the service or the quality of communication to all clients – inevitable consequence in case of decreasing tariffs – we could rather increase that quality, but offer communication or client service only to those “premium customers” which guarantee us minimum 80% of our revenue. And this until the crisis goes away...

How do we identify that 20% of clients, who cannot be replaced?
Again, the answer lies in Direct Marketing.
For this reason, I send my warm greetings to the experts in the financial departments with the following message: the cost is not the problem, but its adequacy.
In other words: Direct Marketing!