Today’s blog post is inspired by 2 or 3 emails I just happened to receive today.

Here we are in mid-2009.  It’s been about 15 years since the world evolved from dialing up to long-distance bulletin board services.  Today it seems that many, if not most people are “always on” with DSL, Cable and other types of Internet services.

Likewise, today most people have nice big 19″ or larger monitors with amazing resolutions.  I remember a day when we had to make websites only 590 pixels wide so that you could view the site without scrolling.  Today we have banner ads wider than that.

Things are progressing.  People are communicating more efficiently, faster, more accurately, etc.

And yet… today I get 3 emails from different internet marketers with old fashioned “pop to the left” text.  So here’s my reply.

Hey guys. Welcome to
the new millinium.

I realize that you’re
probably still eating
off of your Y2K left-
overs, but it’s 2009
now and people have
monitors big enough
to read actual para-
graphs of text.

Heck, we even have
cell phones that
can show full pages
of text and even full-
fledged websites.

So please throw
away your out-dated
Internet marketing
tutorials that tell you
that you need to send
me junk formated like
this.

The reason why text
emails still work is
because they look
like emails people
send directly to each
other.

Excuse me.  But how
many of your friends
send emails to you
like this today?

I’m actually less likely
to read your text-only
message when it’s only
4 or 5 words wide with
hard returns!

- Tony

P.S.  Your Kids will not
want a Tickle-Me-Elmo
this Christmas either.

In my recent press release I am quoted with the following:

“It’s unfortunate to emphasize, but if you read past the headlines, the news stories will show additional unemployment, rising gas prices, and rising fears in the future of this economy,” said Baker. “Keep in mind that while economists now say that the recession started in December of 2007, most people did not feel the effects of that recession until well into 2008.”

Some people may be wondering how I can say that “we’re not going to feel the effects of recovery any time soon” when top analyst are now going on record predicting that the recession will be over by December 2009.

I found the perfect explanation from none other than Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Economy.com

“I will just give you some context. I expect the recession to end this year and then in 2010, we’ll see some growth, not a recession. But it will be a modest kind of growth. We’ll be uncomfortable with it and rising through the first half of the year.  It won’t be until 2011/2012 before we start to see meaningful growth. The key reason for that is that there are large parts of our economy that are struggling. While the banking industry is better, it’s not really providing the kind of credit. So I think we’ll get just as much growth to get out of recession, but not more than that.”

So once you get past the big headlines, we now find that we are not going to see meaningful growth till 2011 or 2012.   What does that mean?

The fact that the recession might be over in December 2009 is:

MEANINGLESS!

… at least to you and me.

The economy overall is not going to be back to “normal” any time soon.  Our society is going to be struggling economically until at least 2011, if not 2012 by Mark Zandi’s own explanation.

The stories about this recession being over in December of 2009 are simply misleading.  I don’t think that people are purposefully trying to deceive us.  Perhaps the news media is just looking for something new to write about.

Recession or not, there are ways for businesses to overcome a bad economy.   Stories about how Apple sold 1 million iPhones in the last 3 days (during a recession!) is where the media should be focusing their headlines.

“Instead of trying to pretend the bad stuff is soon behind us, let’s start talking about how innovative companies are determined to succeed in any economic environment.”

The economy is going to be in trouble until small businesses start seeing success with the advertising and marketing campaigns.  The only way that they will see success is if they start advertising and marketing with a different style and technique than they did when the economy was in “meaningful” growth.

In The Recession Marketing Guide, I show several case studies on how businesses have changed their thinking in order to capatilize on bad economic times.  The Recession Marketing Guide ebook is available free at:

http://www.RecessionMarketingGuide.com

- Tony Darrick Baker