Is this the right time to invest in your business? Is it the best time to bet on Marketing? It is, more than ever! Only by investing in communication can we publicise our products and services, gain market share and increase sales. And it is sales, whether products or services, that companies live and need, especially when in times of crisis, they tend to fall. We often hear that, in times of crisis, there are those who cry and those who sell tissues, and it is a great truth. Crises are fertile ground for new needs to emerge, because it is in the most difficult periods that creativity pulls us to create new solutions and adaptations and always at a dizzying speed. In the last year the world has experienced a crisis and an unprecedented period: from one day to the next the entire world economy froze. With the doors closed and the impossibility of travelling and meeting, companies were left with their hands and feet tied. Solutions and adaptations had to be devised. Suddenly, online meetings, take-away sales, direct Facebook, in short, greater understanding and streamlining on everyone’s part became commonplace. And how? With resilience and strategy. With the economy at a standstill, investments in marketing have almost frozen and then skyrocketed. After all, if one party “cried” the other party quickly sought to start selling “tissues”, whether online, in take away, whatever.

Portugal was one of the countries with the lowest rate of online sales and soon everything changed. Platforms such as MB Way have grown dramatically and using your credit card to make an online purchase is no longer a big deal. It is no longer enough for companies to have just an informative website, and we are seeing from barbershops to have diary/booking management modules, to companies that already sold online but that now have integration with major global platforms such as Amazon and eBay. Many companies have realised that social media posts are not just cute images that distract us, but “invitations” to click that can be translated into a purchase.

The world’s big players, the Big Brands, have always invested a part of their budget in marketing and communication, not to make themselves better known, but to keep active the stimulus to buy their products over those of their competitors.

It’s not just a question of investment power, it’s a question of realising that need. They know that the consumer will end up buying product A or B, but they do everything to make it theirs, preferably A and B.

At Segmento de Mercado we have been working hard with our clients to make this crisis an opportunity for sales, for adaptation, for streamlining methods.

If this is the time to invest in marketing, it is! More than ever, because it has never been more necessary than today to publicise and encourage consumers to buy our products and services. The support of European funds is a great help in making these investments, but it is necessary to be aware of the window of opportunity in which applications are available, to know the procedures for preparing the Project Dossier, its rationale and the technical financial, accounting and tax support that will support it.

If you want to know more, contact us and you will have all the support you need to make your application for Community Funds.