Small business owners should combat the economic slowdown by increasing their marketing spend at taking pay cuts, according to a survey by the Open University Small Enterprise Research Team (SERT).

Of the 700 business owners surveyed more than half said they would be willing to take a pay cut. Almost half (49%) of those surveyed thought that increasing marketing expenditure was a way to beat the downturn, while 42 percent advocated targeting new markets.

An SERT spokesperson said: “Normally the first thing businesses think of cutting back on is marketing and PR. To increase spending in these areas may seem counterintuitive, but this is exactly what [businesses] should be doing to survive.”

Professor Colin Gray, chairman of SERT, comments: “In the midst of this turbulent churn, there are thousands of small firms that have stood the test of time, surviving various cycles of downturns and upturns.

“This is not just a matter of luck. Resilient small business owners have adapted to managing the vagaries of business life and they help carry the whole economy through the bad times.”

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