"Saving your budget (and keeping your team employed) in a down economy really boils down to one word: profit," writes Paul Stein in an article at MarketingProfs. "If you're not making money, you're losing money—and that's never good for business." As our recessionary hangover continues to linger, ROI matters more than ever. It's our job as marketing executives to "protect the company, our department, and our teams and their families by thinking smarter, acting faster, and generating revenue for the company when it's needed most," he says.

So how can you protect your team? Stein offers suggestions like these:

Examine your marketing mix on a daily basis. "If print accounts for 80% of your bottom line and you haven't made major adjustments," he says, "you're probably in trouble." Stein reduced costs and gained flexibility by cutting ad buys in long-lead magazines, while boosting expenditures on SEO, Web and weekly publications. "Those tactics can be tracked with almost pinpoint accuracy and deployed with far less ... creative cost or long-term buys three months prior to the ad drop (as with a lot of monthly publications)."

Let your peers and c-level executives know what you're doing. "The more value, profit, benefit, confidence, hope, joy, and strength that you and your team bring to the table, the better," he notes. Use lunch meetings, for instance, to share your profit-oriented strategies, and to learn how others are tackling the issue. "Not only will your peers think about what you are doing to improve profit," he says, "but they also may take your ideas back to their team or the board."

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