In a recent blog post, we reported that several trends are currently influencing how businesses are spending their budgets, driven largely by the combined goals of cost efficiency and social consciousness.

If your business is like most, you probably have a marketing portal—a system that allows you to store, manage, organize, share and track massive amounts of sensitive company data and content.  This could include everything from documentation and collateral to videos, photos, logos, proprietary software, and other tangible assets that internal teams as well as external partners can access, download and distribute.  Since partners are sometimes required to purchase materials, the system also processes and stores credit card information.

That’s a lot of sensitive information.  And it begs the question: just how secure is your marketing portal?

It’s a new year. Time to start preparing for the various events, conferences and tradeshows on your marketing calendar—not to mention all your other projects and priorities.

Unfortunately, adding headcount right now is difficult if not impossible. Current economic conditions are forcing businesses to tighten their belts. Even if you could find and hire the right talent, building a full-time team to handle spikes in activity surrounding individual events doesn’t make financial sense.

PPAI Expo 2023, held in early January in Las Vegas, attracted the country’s biggest promotional product providers and distributors to showcase what’s in store for the coming year—everything from new products and apparel to event material and order programs.

As with the previous few years, 2023 includes a host of uncertainties that will impact this year’s buying habits. Post-pandemic behavior continues to influence decision making, forcing companies to be cautious about spending. Couple that with an increasingly fragile economy and it’s clear that budgets will suffer.