When the economy takes a downturn, and the word “recession” is uttered in executive offices across the country, there is often one standard response: cut the budget. For many companies, the first department on the chopping block is marketing. This is the one area of businesses where results may seem intangible, and executives could assume — at their peril — that slicing away some of the perceived marketing fat will make little difference to the end result. The truth could not be more different.

Advancements in marketing tools have made marketing budgets even more at risk in times of recession. Before digital marketing was the norm, businesses were often tied into lengthy and expensive-to-kill print and radio campaigns. With digital marketing, though, switching off the campaign is as easy as one click.

The flexibility and cost-efficiency of digital marketing are some of its greatest benefits, after all. You could go from spending $100,000 a month to zero in the blink of an eye. For a small or medium-sized business, that could be game-changing. It could also be game-ending in the medium to long term.

Switching off your digital marketing efforts in a recession would be completely counterintuitive because it is during this very time period that more people will be spending time online than ever before. Sure, they may not be spending money on nonessentials the same way they were, but nothing lasts forever. Not even a recession. By completely removing yourself from the digital market, you nearly guarantee that, when your customer is ready to spend again, they won’t have your brand in mind.